Over the years, hundreds of incoming students at the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University have gotten a head start on getting to know their peers each August by exploring the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in Northern Minnesota as part of a multi-day outdoor orientation program.
The program – known as Collegebound – has been in operation since 1987. Groups of seven-to-nine first-year or transfer students are paired with trip leaders specially trained in outdoor leadership skills and group communication. All trip leaders also participated in Collegebound their first year.
The Boundary Waters program is again being offered this year. But Outdoor U – the organization that provides environmental and outdoor education initiatives through the Abbey Arboretum, CSB and SJU – is now adding a second option – one designed to take advantage of the numerous outdoor adventure options that exist on the two campuses and the surrounding area.
Collegebound Basecampus is scheduled to run from Aug. 14-19.
Participants will break into groups led by guides and take part in rock climbing at the indoor climbing wall in the Warner Palaestra, as well as outdoors at Quarry Park Nature Reserve in Waite Park. They will also go canoeing on both Lake Sagatagan at SJU and the nearby Sauk River. In addition, they will bike on the Lake Wobegon Trail (which runs close by both CSB and SJU) and camp on Watab Island on the SJU campus.
The cost is $450 per student, which includes transportation, food, permits, lodging and gear. Financial support is available through the Mason V. Sorenson Memorial Fund, which provides need-based financial support for Collegebound participation and other CSB and SJU outdoor programs
“The outdoors is such a big focal point of both these campuses,” said Outdoor U outdoor education program manager Sierra Hietala.
“There’s so much to see and do here. On how many other college campuses can you take a three-mile hike in the woods, camp overnight on an island and take advantage of several lakes? This is a chance to highlight the opportunities that exist here and help new students get to know the campuses before other students move in and orientation starts.”
Jelton Joseph, who will start his sophomore year at SJU this fall, will be one of the program’s guides. He is excited to show off everything CSB and SJU have to offer.
“That’s something very particular to these campuses, having all this outdoors stuff – the lakes, trails and camping sites,” he said. “There are opportunities here you’re not going to find anywhere else.”
Joseph took part in the Collegebound Boundary Waters trip prior to beginning his freshman year last fall, and said the experience gave him a leg up when it came to meeting new people.
“A lot of people didn’t get here until orientation week, but I had already found a group of friends from being on that trip,” he said. “It was a lot of fun and it really helped bring us together. We still talked about it well after we got back and classes had started.”
Joseph, a physics major with an engineering concentration, came to the U.S. from Haiti with his family in 2021. They settled in Florida, where he attended Golden Gate High School in Naples, Florida.
“Coming to Saint John’s was something completely unexpected,” he said. “I was part of an after-school program in high school. When I first came to the U.S., my English wasn’t that great and they helped a lot with that. There was a connection between that organization and Saint John’s, and Matt Beirne from the admissions department came down and met with me.
“I had to Google Minnesota on the map, and I saw it was right next to Canada. It seemed like it would be really cold! But I got here and I loved the sense of community. The weather is completely different than I’m used to. But I like the fact that so many people in Minnesota love taking part in activities outdoors. That’s always been a passion of mine as well.”
It’s a passion he’s found numerous ways to explore at CSB and SJU. Now he is looking forward to sharing all that with others as well.
“What’s so cool about this for me is that everything is right in our backyard,” he said. “You can’t go back to the Boundary Waters all the time. But all this stuff is here for you all the time. My friends and I have already gone camping on campus.
“Once you know all this stuff is here, you can keep going back even after classes start.”
