The end of Wintersession, a free, two-week series of events open to all members of the Princeton community, is expected to significantly impact leadership training for Outdoor Action (OA), a four-day program during first-year orientation. While the Class of 2029 OA experience was largely unchanged by budget cuts, parts of training for OA previously ran during Wintersession.
“Not having Wintersession is really detrimental to the Outdoor Action program because this is a block of time that students have off from school where they can really dedicate time to Outdoor Action,” said Rebecca Cunningham ’26, the co-chair of the Leader Training Committee.
Cunningham is a former News writer for the ‘Prince.’
Cunningham feared the organizers may have to make group sizes larger to accommodate a potential scarcity of trained leaders. “We think that the smaller size is much more intimate and just more conducive to a learning environment, hiking, and backpacking,” she shared.
Greyson Sapio ’26, chair for the OA Command Center, acknowledged there could be alternative solutions to this problem — such as training OA leaders in the fall and spring and not during Wintersession.
“Something that we’ve been talking about a lot is: how do we now implement more opportunities for training throughout the year?” said Cunningham.
These are not the only changes surrounding OA.
This year, eight OA groups set up base camp on campus — an increase from four groups in 2024. Leaders said the shift was a result of more students electing to stay on campus, rather than due to funding issues.
One noticeable difference from previous years was the food selections offered throughout the three-day experience.
“There were some minor things that got changed. For example, the pita pizza menu is not available anymore because of the ingredient cost, and the dried mango snacks were not available,” Sophie Lin-Wiese ’28, an OA leader, told the ‘Prince.’
Alumni voiced support for the continuation of OA amid potential funding cuts to the program.
“I really, really hope the program can continue to be supported because I think some of the impacts are not immediately visible and emerge over years to decades,” Marion Hourdequin ’95 told the ‘Prince.’
“OA was a really huge part of my experience, and the group of people that I met on my frosh trip — many of them have become lifelong friends of mine,” Sarah Wingerter ’95 added.
Lin-Wiese noted this year’s OA experience was “not much different” from her first-year trip. “We were all able to get the full OA experience and give that to our students that we were leading.”
It remains unclear what type of long-term impact, if any, funding cuts might have on the first-year Orientation experience.
“With all the budget cuts, we’re at a point right now where … nothing is set in stone,” said Cunningham.
Sena Chang is a senior News writer for the ‘Prince.’ She typically covers campus and community activism, the state of higher education, and alumni news.
Please send any corrections to corrections[at]dailyprincetonian.com.
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