Presidents Report

I hope you are all enjoying a wonderful fall. Things have been very busy within the association. The Board of Trustees has been sailing through the WEA strategic plan for two years now and are very pleased about the progress that is being made.

There are many changes they are getting ready implement within the association starting January 1^st , 2010. We are extremely excited about the how these initiatives will mold the association and our profession.

It is important as members of the WEA to be abreast of these changes and inform yourself to how these impacts will affect you as a Certified Outdoor Leader, an Instructor, and an Affiliate. This is the time to take the initiative to read all the documents thoroughly and ask questions to better clarify the direction we are moving.

As a WEA member it is important to note that the standard language of WEW, WSP, NSP, PSC, etc. no longer exists. What is still in place is Outdoor Leader Certification. The Board believes that this move will allow for more academic freedom for organizations to build better Outdoor Leader preparation programs giving the association a more diverse constituency from which we can draw best practices from. Affiliates will no longer be bound by specific course structures but by student learning outcomes.

The WEA is now the Accreditation body for Outdoor Leadership Preparation Programs

Although accreditation is not new to the WEA, the way in which we conduct the accreditation process is. We are now requiring a thorough pre-application, which will be reviewed by the Accreditation Counsel for accreditation suitability. Upon acceptance the applicant will conduct a thorough self study. Once the self study is complete it will be reviewed by the Accreditation Counsel. At that point the Counsel will determine the applicants accreditation status. Affiliates will submit annual reports and be reviewed every five years. After the first five year period a site visit will be part of the review. This will be the only mandatory site visit during the accreditation period unless the Counsel request additional visits. For more information on this process and to be apart of the Accreditation Manual review visit (http://www.weainfo.org/member-benefits-details/). We currently have several affiliates going through this process to pilot the manual and provide feedback to the association.

The move to this style of accreditation frees the affiliates from having to submit the majority to the course paperwork to the association. Affiliates will be responsible for quarterly rosters and the rest of the course paperwork will be kept in house for possible review in a style that is suitable for the Affiliate. This also frees up the National Office. Currently more than 50% of the National Office time is spent on course paperwork, which generates no positive revenue for the association. This time will now be allocated to member retention in the hopes to bolster our revenue.

This move was also encouraged by our legal counsel that we sought over the past year. The IU Non-Profit Legal Clinic spent a few months reviewing the operations of the association and the intent to become and accreditating body. They looked at all aspects of the association and did a comparative analysis of comparable organizations to look at the association’s liability exposure. They determined that our current strategic plan was in our best interest and gave us some points to consider as we move forward. This was a very helpful analysis and the IU Non-Profit Legal Clinic should be commended for their work.

The Accreditation process was designed using the standards set forth by the US Department of Education’s guidelines for Specialized Accrediting Agencies. Our hope is to apply for recognition by the US Department of Education within a few years. We believe that this status will greatly assist our non-academic organizations to provide financial assistance to the students in their programs.

This is a very important change. Outdoor Leadership Certification is now awarded through the affiliate. The certification will have the WEA accredited seal on the certification. Once the certification is awarded by the affiliate it is then handed over to the association for continued maintenance via the International Registry of Outdoor Leaders (IROL). The National Office will then begin to track Continuing Education for our Certified Outdoor Leaders in the IROL. The intent of this change is to provide a service to WEA members that is valuable to them as emerging and current professionals and will bolster member retention. In the coming months a Certification Manual is going to be produced and put up for review by the membership. This manual will more thoroughly outline this process.

Certification has historically been offered at the end of a course to successful graduates. While this is still an option for affiliates the structure has been modified to allow for greater flexibility. Certification is now awarded based on the evaluation of a student portfolio of collected assessments. The Board is currently working with an E portfolio provider to build a system from which these evaluations can happen. This now means that students can work towards Outdoor Leader Certification over an extended period of time and even work with multiple Affiliates to complete different Core Competencies.

The Board believes that this will greatly expand the types of course offerings Affiliates will be able to provide and will encourage students to seek a more diverse experience. It will also allow non traditional students the possibility to work at smaller pieces of it at a time rather than devoting a month straight in the field.

Instead of apprenticing a single WEA course and applying for Instructorship to the Standards Committee, the road to becoming listed as an Instructor in the IROL will be shifting. To be listed as an Instructor in the IROL you have to be able to demonstrate several things. The first is acquisition of professional work experience in the field. The second is training and competency in assessment and evaluation of each of the six core competencies. The training and assessment of instructors including their recommendation for Instructor status in the IROLwill be provided by Affiliates that are accredited to our newly developed Instructor Accreditation tier. This new process will also include a path for folks with past experience to challenge their experience against the certification standards and be assessed with out having to go through the traditional instructor training hoops that are often redundant and costly.

The Board believes that these changes are critical for the WEA to provide a platform from which to continue professionalizing the outdoor leadership industry. From the individual portfolios in the IROL, to providing flexible opportunities for curriculum coverage and field time at the Institutional Level, the pieces of the puzzle fit together to allow the future outdoor leadership professionals a more identifiable path to become involved with the WEA, and ultimately begin sustainable accredited programs in a more effectively and comprehensively than we have been able to do in the past.

It is critical that you as a member stay abreast of the changes in the association on multiple fronts. First it will help you stay current with what the association is doing. The WEA has been moving quite well over the past few years and we hope to keep the ball rolling. The second and most important reason to stay breast of the changes is because we would like as much feedback as possible. It is important for the board and the association to hear the questions of the membership so please post to our forums as they come up and let us know what your thinking. Thanks for your time and patience as we make these transitions.