While suspended 40 feet above the Schenck Forest, many N.C. State University campus groups are learning more about their group members, as well as lessons about teamwork.
Sitting on 300 acres managed by the Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources, the University Recreation Challenge Course is a gauntlet for students and organizations to grow and have fun. However, much of this would not have been possible had it not been for N. C. State alumnus Jim Wall.
In spring 2009, the construction began for what would become the “Jim Wall Challenge Course” with donations from Wall. Since then, the permanent structures that make up the canopy “challenge experience” have doubled in size, and a new “low course” allows challengers to stay firmly planted on solid ground.
In addition to this construction, University Recreation has built three stand-alone high elements, or individual structures upon which challengers can practice teambuilding activities while suspended above ground.
Constructing a challenge course can be an expensive project. According to Assistant Director of Outdoor Adventures, Jason Rich, each element costs roughly $1,500 to $1,800 in addition to the cost of the poles, which range from $450 to $650. This figure does not include the cost of labor, meals, travel or housing for those doing the construction.
Rich has worked for Wall since 1998, when Wall was Rich’s faculty adviser in graduate school. During that time, Wall also owned a company called Wall’s Outdoor that was later renamed Challenge Design Innovations (CDI).
Because Rich does contract work for CDI, he saved the University money by building the low course internally. And as the assistant director of Outdoor Adventures, he still helps facilitate groups to complete the challenge course.
“Every group that comes to the challenge course is unique,” Rich said. “Every group comes to us with a different set of goals, and we custom design every program to meet those goals. One group may come in and want to focus on team building, and it enjoys field activities, while another group comes in for the fun and thrill of the experience and loves the high course.”
Groups must have a minimum of 12 members, and the cost is $20 per member to cover the cost of staffing. Groups are billed as a group and can pay with check, card or IDT (inter-department transfer).
To schedule a trip to the challenge course, a group needs to email recreation-teambuilding@ncsu.edu or contact Jason Rich at jrrich2@ncsu.edu, explaining that it would like to schedule a time slot throughout the week. Groups can either specify what aspects of the challenge course it would like its program to consist of or speak to Rich about its options.
“When a group contacts us, we send them a worksheet to explain who their group is and what they want to accomplish,” Rich said. “We use that information to design the program.”
Programs last either four hours or eight hours.
Rich said he enjoys watching people grow and watching teams come together.
“Being able to impart all of the experience that I’ve had over all those years to college-aged staff and watching them grow to be young professionals in the challenge course world is very rewarding,” Rich said.
