Lander, WY – A major topic of conversation at WCC’s Outdoor Leadership Program (OLP) this week is whether to allow couples to go together on the convent trip next fall. “It wouldn’t be defeating the purpose of the trip,” one OLP staff member said according to IIT’s #absolutelythere source but merely “would offer greater capacity and clarity to emerge from student’s discernment efforts,” he continued.
Offered typically once a year during school Outdoor Week’s, the convent trip is a time for discernment, prayer, and reflection, and only open to women. It typically involves a visit to a convent, working with the nuns, and participating in their daily life. While opening up to allow dating couples to go together would of course involve the typical rules and separations observed on every trip for propriety’s sake, it “would in itself be a major move forward to equality and opportunity at the school according to IIT commentator and rising senior Marcus Gardner of Virginia “as the stigma that you can’t take this trip if you’re dating and not solely considering religious life would be banished in an absolutely massive way.”
According to our source in the OLP administration, they are still considering this for a final determination before August 1st as part of a larger proposal that would eliminate the ban on couples at the school from going on more than one outdoor trip together in any given year.