A liberal arts education, unplugged

By Frank Ferraro

If you had told me ten years ago that I would be teaching students out of a tent in the Wyoming wilderness, I would have been skeptical. Why would I, a psychology professor whose research rarely took me out of the lab, choose to work without electricity or even running water? What does roughing it in nature have to do with psychology?

When I first came to Nebraska Wesleyan University, I didn’t fully understand the value of a liberal arts education. But my time here has proven that experiences in seemingly unrelated disciplines add up to more than the sum of their parts. It has also given me an incredible desire to pay it forward. Now I know that the liberal arts are worth protecting and my experiences here are only possible because of the ongoing support of the NWU community.

I grew up in Omaha—a city kid through and through. So when biology professor Dale Benham invited me on his Archway Seminar class, The Necessity of Wilderness, in which he takes students to Minnesota’s Boundary Waters for a week, I was less than enthused. Despite initial reservations, the experience was a turning point that changed not only my teaching, but my entire perspective on life and learning. A few years later, neuroscientist David Strayer came to campus to give a lecture on the cognitive impacts of texting and driving. It sparked an idea. If I were to take my students out into the wilderness, take away their technology and force them to interact with and rely on each other, how would that affect their cognitive skills? I worked with Strayer to incorporate some of his research methods into Dale Benham’s next Minnesota expedition. Sure enough, the students’ mental capacity significantly improved during and after the trip.

I then created my own class called Psychological Reactions to Nature, in which I took six sophomores and juniors into the Wyoming wilderness for a week. We hiked for miles each day, worked together to find water and prepare food, and the students wrote daily about their experiences. The effects it had on them were extraordinary. Some came back with the desire to get involved in government policies and how corporations treat the natural world. One student came up with a design for an indoor vertical garden. Some started incorporating walks in the park into their daily routines, while others found new interests in recreational outdoor activities, eating organic foods and exercising more. Without a doubt, the trip changed each and every student for the better.

That is the joy of a liberal arts education. As teachers, we lay the soil but it’s always a surprise to see what grows out of it. The liberal arts give birth to tomorrow’s explorers, scientists, storytellers, entrepreneurs and free-thinkers of all kinds.

Without the generosity of the many alumni, parents and friends who support the university year after year, Dale wouldn’t be able to take his students to the Boundary Waters, David Strayer would never have lectured here, and I wouldn’t have had the research opportunities and the ability to create new curriculum from the ground up. That is why I have been giving back for the last four years.

It is up to us to make sure that Nebraska Wesleyan and its students continue to thrive year after year. To say that a liberal arts education changes lives here may seem hyperbolic, but it really is the truth. I had to go out into the wilderness to fully appreciate that, but now I feel it every day.

Frank Ferraro is an Associate Professor of Psychology at Nebraska Wesleyan University and loves the great outdoors.