About NOLS Self-Assembly
Our Start
Our group's start in 2022 was inspired by taking a self-leadership role within an organized structure.
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Over the past several years, each of us had independently reached out to the school to express our concern that NOLS, through its poor implementation of a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) program, had lost sight of its Mission and had moved away from the every day practice of Expedition Behavior.
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NOLS response, when they did respond, was to justify its DEI program by summarily explaining that students have changed and the school needed to change. And by tacit comparison, each of us had not changed - out of step, out of touch.
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NOLS defines self-leadership "as much a personal role as it is a team role. Each team member is responsible for demonstrating self-leadership: personal initiative and character and attention to one's well-being in order to be a productive member of the group and the larger society".​​​
Through contacts made over the summer of 2022, we realized we could be more effective if we self-assembled to speak with one voice.
Wikipedia defines self-assembly as "a process in which a disordered system of pre-existing components forms an organized structure or pattern as a consequence of specific, local interactions among the components themselves, without external direction."
Self-leadership within an organized structure – NOLS Self-Assembly.
Our Current objective
Our current objective is to call on NOLS leadership not to overlook the obvious: the urgent need to create the context for real and lasting change – a vibrant NOLS culture.
NOLS leadership needs to include in its action plan how to address a dysfunctional NOLS culture, which a poorly implemented DEI initiative helped bring about.
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We are concerned that NOLS' parallel initiatives - raising funds, implementing its Second Summit Strategic Plan and bringing a remote work NOLS executive team up to speed - will fall short unless NOLS reaffirms its Mission and the everyday practice of Expedition Behavior. ​
Our Goal
Our goal is to promote an open discussion about how NOLS can stay true to its Mission and the practice of Expedition Behavior. We created this website to share our findings with the greater NOLS community - past, present, and future.
