University News

McGowan Presented WEA's Highest Award

March 5, 2020

Share |
Printer friendly version

MACOMB, IL – Western Illinois University Recreation Park and Tourism Administration Professor Emeritus Michael L. McGowan was recently awarded the Paul Petzoldt Award, the highest award given by the Wilderness Education Association (WEA).

WEA is dedicated to the development and professional outdoor leaders and educators. One of the founders of the WEA is WIU Professor Emeritus Frank Lupton. Classes were developed in 1977, for a collaborative, experimental, wilderness-based course with Lupton's WIU students in the Wind River Range and Targhee National Forest in Wyoming. The experience became the inspiration and model for the Environmental Education Outdoor Education Expedition (ECOEE), a signature program at WIU. ECOEE is the educational model used by WEA instructors and member organizations.

Paul Petzoldt, who the award is named for, was also one of the founders and was the collaborator in the development of the ECOEE courses in 1977. Other founders of the WEA include Robert Christie and Charles Gregory. Each shared a vision to preserve the wilderness and educate leaders about conserving the backcountry for future generations.

McGowan was presented with his award during WEA's annual conference in mid-February. He also presented the keynote address during the conference.

"Friendship, stewardship, craftsmanship, sportsmanship, service and leadership require the acquisition and maturation of essential human qualities in specific endeavors in concrete relationships that are of immediate and significant consequence to the learner," said McGowan. "Importantly in wilderness, participants have opportunities to test the validity and reliability of enacting these human qualities to resolve practical problems and to lend insight into human being and becoming."

McGowan added that there is a "subtext, unspoken and a deeper thread" that runs through WEA and all wilderness programs.

"That deeper thread is human development, often referred to early in the field as character or spiritual development. It is the weft that supports all the other threads and allows us to weave meaningful purposeful experiences," he said. "Wilderness programs must provide opportunities for participants to experience, and also to dialogue, reflect, and contemplate, so to gain insight into these qualities - to realize the extraordinary with in the ordinary."

For more information about the WIU RPTA ECOEE program, visit wiu.edu/RPTA.

Posted By: University Communications (U-Communications@wiu.edu)
Office of University Communications & Marketing