Next school year, the Center for Adventure Leadership is rebranding and changing its name to the Kentucky Outdoor Institute at Asbury University (KOI). The announcement was made over email last Friday, April 5, with a kick-off party last Tuesday, April 9, which also provided games for the audience, as well as held giveaways and gave out other KOI related merchandise.
The KOI is a non-profit organization that describes themselves on their website by stating the organization “exists to educate groups and individuals in the technical and ethical practice of outdoor adventures. Too often, those of us that appreciate and love the outdoors do avoidable damage or take unnecessary risks. This is a problem of education that can be solved. We strive to operate above industry standards as risk managers and pass these concepts on to our participants. Employing minimum impact techniques and appropriate technical systems to our teaching, instruction and guiding allows us to model best practices while providing high quality, engaging, and just plain fun experiences in the outdoors.”
On Asbury’s official website, the University writes that “The Kentucky Outdoor Institute (KOI) at Asbury University offers programming for the public and Asbury community, with the purpose of growing individuals and teams in and through outdoor and adventure experiences. Operating as an academic major and minor for students at Asbury and an instructional outfitter for the public, KOI’s primary goal is to educate. Whether guests want to learn to be a better rock climber or lead their organization to success, KOI’s fully customizable programs fit every need and skill level. The adventure education technique uses an experiential learning approach — indoors or outdoors — that puts individuals and groups into situations with uncertain outcomes that allow them to struggle with problems, engage creative solutions and use trial and error.”
Kiki Yee, the Assistant Director for Adventure Leadership, said, “There are no changes to the Adventure Education and Leadership Major and Minor.” Yee continued, “Our center, which our major and minor are under, is going through a name change. We used to be called the Asbury University Center for Adventure Leadership, we will now be called the Kentucky Outdoor Institute (KOI) at Asbury University.” Yee further stated “The main reason for the name change is that people often believed that we only ran programming for Asbury students. This is not the case as we run many programs for the general public, such as low and high ropes courses, leadership development, canoeing, backpacking, caving, rock climbing indoors and outdoors, rappelling and even backpacking trips out west.” Yee finished by saying “We believe that this name change and the launch party that is happening next week will help remind the community and the University that we offer a large variety of customizable programs and adventures that are open to all ages.”
The name change will come into effect in full for the 2024-2025 school year, with the KOI at Asbury University being one of many departments to add changes or additions to the majors they provide, such as the new Major of Sports Communication in Media Communications, the addition of a Pre-Law and Human Trafficking Minor to the Political Science department and the changes in some Majors and Minors class requirements sheets, such as the History Department.
Featured image by Lena Overman.