Return
to Cranberry home page
High and low ropes courses offer teambuilding and fun on campus
| From grade-schoolers to corporate businessmen, all participants can benefit from the confidence courses |
by KITTY HURST
Many joggers pass the low ropes course on the west end of Johnson Field without thinking twice about the suspended tire, the high wooden wall, or the cables crisscrossing six inches above the ground. Some may wonder about the odd and often deserted structures.
Only in the spring and summer is the course alive, crawling with fifth graders swinging, balancing, and building confidence, or maybe a group of businessmen learning how to plan strategically and use teamwork to scale a 13 foot wall.
|
photo by Kitty Hurst |
| Students from an elementary school swing "all abaord" on the low ropes course. |
“Our ropes courses focus on gaining new perspective. It’s about the realization that you can do something by telling yourself you can do it,” said Susan Harper, manager of the University of New Mexico’s ropes courses and rock climbing program.
Resembling an army obstacle course, the low ropes confidence course challenges participants to overcome physical obstacles through teamwork. Individuals also learn to find their own strengths and apply them to other challenges in their lives.
“It’s just poles and cables,” Haper said. “It might not look like it, but that course can change people lives.”
Harper is an adjunct professor at the university and has completed her Ph.D. in therapeutic recreation, conducting research on the high ropes course and women on welfare.
“Our courses really come alive with all of the learning and growing participants have done over the years,” said Harper, who has been at UNM since the early 1990s.
The ropes program is laid out in three stages. The first is known as portables, or ice-breaking activities.
The second stage of teambuilding is the low course, with more than 15 activities including a group teeter-totter, a rope swing, and a triangular traverse.
|
photo by Kitty Hurst |
| Students have to use teamwork to swing on a rope to safety on the low ropes course. |
The third stage is the high course, located in a courtyard inside Johnson Gym. This challenging confidence course takes participants 30 feet in the air to overcome obstacles in teams of two. Also in the courtyard there are rock climbing and bouldering walls.
The high course was built in 1985 when experiential learning activities had just expanded into university settings, schools, psychiatric hospitals, and camps across America. The builders were local rock climbers and developed a compact course at UNM that included the basic concepts of teambuilding 30 feet above the ground.
“When I first came to UNM, I was dismayed at how small the course was. But it has turned out to be gem,” Harper said.
The new course included one of the first climbing walls in the country, Harper said.
The builders had no plans or examples of other courses to copy, so the course is unique. For insurance purposes, courses are now regulated and made by only a few companies, which produce courses very similar to each other.
“It’s not as high, as big, or as scary as other courses, but as a facilitator working on courses for 30 years, I’ve seen far more accomplished on that course than any other,” Harper said.
|
photo by Kitty Hurst |
| UNM student and ropes facilitator, Kelsey Cline, spots students in a teambuilding low ropes activity. |
“The thrill of watching a group overcome challenges is great, but the real success is when people apply those skills to their real lives,” Harper said.
In spring 2006, Harper began a ropes and adventure training class taught as a physical education credit at UNM. The first class was successful and two sections were offered this spring.
Harper tries to offer previous students work on the course throughout the spring and summer, when the ropes are busy.
“The class was so much fun, and by the end we were trained to lead all kinds of confidence courses,” said Kelsey Cline, a previous ropes student now facilitating for UNM.
The ropes class can only have 15 students enrolled to ensure enough training time for each student, Harper said. When running the course, Harper limits groups to 15 people per facilitator as well.
“As a musical education major, [facilitating ropes courses] is not something I pictured myself doing, but it turned out to be a great opportunity,” Cline said.
Cline has been teaching at the course since last summer. She has worked with a wide range of groups, from businessmen to at-risk youths to second-graders.
“I get to help other people learn how to improve their lives,” Cline said. “I’m always learning new things!”
The course itself is a place of learning and new opportunities, said Cline. But she said she puts more value on what she can apply in the classroom when she begins teaching.
“Everything we learn seems like common sense –like don’t disrespect yourself or others, or using everybody’s strengths to solve problems, but too often it’s forgotten in real life,” Cline said.
Rules in the course ensure emotional safety as well as physical safety. One of Clines favorite rules is not to disrespect yourself or others. This stops name-calling and negative language.
“If you break that one, we take it very seriously” Cilne said, “You have to sing a song in front of everybody.”
|
photo by Kitty Hurst |
| The low ropes course looks like an army obstacle course without participants on it. |
The rules on the course encourage positive thinking and growth, rather than negativity.
“If people know they’re in a safe place, they’re more willing to take chances and push themselves,” Cline said. “That’s why the course is so great, it’s such a positive place.”
After each activity is completed, Harper requires thorough verbal processing to encourage participants take the accomplishments into their daily lives.
“The ropes program can literally change a person’s outlook on life,” Harper said. “I have people stop me on the street and tell me how the course helped them pull through tough situations –that’s the real reward the course offers.”
Written
May 1, 2008
Go to Top
|
Instructor passionate about heights
|
photo by courtesy of Susan Harper |
| Susan Harper is an all-around outdoor woman. |
by KITTY HURST
From kayaking in the Yucatan to rock climbing in Utah to backpacking in Alaska, Susan Harper was born to be outdoors.
She has traveled the world leading outdoor confidence and teambuilding trips, but her favorite spot is still a ropes course.
“I’d rather be on a high ropes course than anywhere else in the world,” Harper said.
Harper grew up in Wyoming, playing on the rafters in the family barn. She began rock climbing at age 5.
“When I was little, I envied other women because their fingernails always looked so nice,” Harper said. “Mine were short because I was always doing something outside.”
After earning a Master’s Degree in Therapeutic Recreation, she moved to New Mexico and accepted a job running a ropes course for high-risk individuals at a psychiatric hospital.
Then she worked at Albuquerque Academy where she taught a wilderness program that included high ropes, backpacking, kayaking, and other outdoor skills.
Harper went on to found Journeys in Excellence, an outdoor teambuilding and training company. She has been manager of the University of New Mexico’s high ropes confidence course and rock climbing program for more than 10 years.
“Ropes courses are my passion. They are an incredibly valuable tool for so many different people,” Harper said.
Harper is also an adjunct professor at the university and has completed her Ph.D. She teaches a ropes and climbing adventure class, as well as a continuing education confidence course for women.
She conducted research on the high ropes course and women on welfare. She said she chose this topic because no one else had done research on women on welfare and ropes courses before.
She said her results showed that 99.9 percent of the time the course raised women’s confidence levels.
“All the statistics say is the ropes course made a difference,” Harper said. “It wasn’t me, it wasn’t the weather, it wasn’t the t-shirts I gave the women, it was the ropes course that really made the difference.”
Harper is a certified instructor in many areas of outdoor recreation. She is a licensed Therapeutic Recreation Specialist. She lives with her husband in Placitas.
|
