#426 Extraordinary Presidents Outdoor Scholars Program – William Crawford

September 15, 2017

 

WTR 426 | President’s Outdoor Scholars Program

What do young people enjoy doing outside of athletics? This was the question they were trying to answer when William Crawford crafted the President’s Outdoor Scholars Program, an outdoor curriculum that keeps students plugged into the outdoors while they’re in college. So many young people are disconnected from the outdoors or things they grew up doing when they go off to college because they’re out trying to get an education. William assures that with the outdoor program, they can still get an education but there’ll be parts of the outdoors, and it’s something they can fall back on. He adds that the program is having a huge impact on young people by getting attention from people who might not typically go off to college or had no desire to go off to college.

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We’re heading down to Montevallo, Alabama. We’re going on visit with a good friend, William Crawford, who’s the Director of the President’s Outdoor Scholars Program at the University of Montevallo. Having said that, William has crafted an unbelievable outdoor curriculum for kids who love the outdoors, who can’t seem to put it together in college, can’t find the right curriculum. Montevallo is a liberal arts school. With that, Dr. Stewart, the President of the university came to William and said, “What if we did this?” and they’re starting a curriculum that’s unique throughout the country about the outdoors. Everything about the outdoors, anything you’re thinking, “I wish I had known that when I was going to college or sooner,” they’re teaching the kids about habitat, about food plots, about marketing, about the outdoor industry. All these things rolled up into one, The President’s Outdoor Scholars Program. I’m sure you’re going to love the show.

Listen to the podcast here:

Extraordinary President’s Outdoor Scholars Program with William Crawford

I’ve got a special friend and a special guest on, his name is William Crawford. William is the Director of the President’s Outdoor Scholars Program. He’s going to talk to us about Dr. Stewart’s dream and vision to start this program.

Thanks, Bruce. I’m glad that we were able to get together and do this. Dr. John Stewart, who is the President of the University of Montevallo, had a vision. His vision involved young people in the outdoors. Dr. Stewart came to me with an idea of developing a program that would be beneficial to college-age students. He came to me with a question. This question, I thought it was a trick question because when the president of the university comes to you and asks you a question, you want to make sure you give them the right answer.

His question to me was, “What do young people in the South enjoy doing outside of athletics?” I thought for about half a second and I answered, “The outdoors, hunting and fishing,” and he says, “That’s what I’m thinking.” I asked him, “Why do you ask this question?” He says, “I think we ought to develop a program that keeps students plugged into the outdoors while they’re in college.”

The reason he had this idea is because when he was off in college many years ago, he was taken away from his home turf, his outdoor playground, being eight hours away from home. He felt he missed out on a lot of opportunity related to the outdoors? Dr. Stewart grew up on the coast of Delaware in the salt marshes, offshore fishing and waterfowl hunting. When he was eight hours away from home, he never got to participate in any of these outdoor activities unless he was home for a holiday or a little bit of time during the summer when he wasn’t working.

It brought back to him that he felt he missed out on a lot. He wanted to develop a program that kept students plugged into the outdoors while they were in college. Many young people when they go off to college, they’re disconnected from the outdoors or things they grew up doing because they’re out trying to get an education. They can still get an education and still be a part of the outdoors. They needed something to fall back on. That’s where the whole idea and vision of this President’s Outdoor Scholars Program came about.

How long ago was that discussion? Let’s talk about where you are now?

That discussion happened back in 2015. Dr. Stewart had to give some reassurance because he’s going out on the limb, doing something that nobody else has ever done before, especially on a college campus. It took several months of me convincing him that, “This would really be good, not only for the students but myself. I’d love to do something like this that teaches students about the outdoors and keeping them involved.” After a couple months of convincing him and giving him that reassurance that he needed, we jumped into it. We’re going for it. The bad thing is the time of the year that it was. We were basically four to five months from the time school started the following fall semester. We had to hit the ground running and try to find some students to plug into the program.

W

WTR 426 | President’s Outdoor Scholars Program

e had to go out and raise a lot of money to get things going. We were able to do that. The first year we had eight students enrolled in the program. We were able to raise about $25,000 in about a four-month period to help get the program get started to help pay for conservation projects, scholarships and some of those trips and activities that are our students were planning to go on. Right away we saw that this program was going to have a huge impact on young people. We were getting attention from people who might not typically go off to college, had no desire to go off to college. One of our better students fell in that category. After high school, he wanted to get a job, get out and start working and making money. It wasn’t that he wasn’t capable or prepared for college coursework, he just wasn’t motivated. Having him come in and have above a 3.0 grade point average for two years and be one of our top students, it spoke volumes to us to let us see that there was definitely a need out there for that.

Fast forward through the first year, we’re going into year two and we have 22 students in the program. We’ve went out, hit the recruiting trail, promoting this program, we doubled our numbers than what we had. It lets us see that these students and these young people were hungry for something. We were able to branch out into Tennessee, get some students and not just our students here in Alabama. We were starting to have an impact on different young people throughout the Southeast. Coming up into year three, we are going to have 40 students in the program. We have students from Alabama, Tennessee, Florida, Georgia and South Carolina that are going to be involved in this program for this coming year.

It’s amazing how fast we’ve grown in the short amount of time. It’s amazing how much support we’ve gained to the outdoor industry in this time and all that we’ve been able to do and accomplish in three short years. We have internships that are available for our students already. We even had a couple of job offers for students this summer. It just so happened we don’t have any students that have graduated yet. A lot of good things are coming up just in two and a half short years of this program’s life.

Let’s talk about the recruiting effort and social media. I know you are up on Instagram. I follow or whatever I am, I see your posts. How are you using social media to reach out to find kids throughout literally North America?

Social media has been such a huge asset to us. Anybody knows you can have the best product on the face of the Earth, but if nobody knows about it, it’s not going to do anybody any good. In social media, being able to reach thousands and thousands of people on a daily basis is huge. What we’re starting to see now is not us going out and directly trying to find these students, the students are finding us. We polled our class that’s coming in and last year’s class to see how they found out about our program and our institution. About 75% of them said they heard about us through social media and that was our first contact was through social media. We’re trying to do as much as we can on Instagram and Facebook. We’ve signed on Twitter. To get our message out of what we’re doing and what we’re about because we want the best and the brightest minds across the country.

Students that are hungry and want to know about career opportunities related to the outdoor industry, they want to be able to find that job or have that career that will fulfill a lifelong dream for a lot of these people. It’s amazing how many young people would love to do something related to the outdoors, but they don’t know how to go about doing it. That’s what this program’s about. It’s about educating them on those opportunities and introducing them through different avenues and allow them to network with different people that are in the industry. Social media has played a huge part in those recruiting efforts.

What about the Outdoor Life, Deer & Deer Hunting, Bugle Magazine, Ducks Unlimited, there are a lot of opportunities for somebody to come in just like we’re doing and spending an hour with you or so and talking about what you’re doing. People should interview you or could interview you. Your thoughts on that, does that happen?

We’ve had a lot of publicity here in the State of Alabama just because this is our home state. We’re starting to see more and more branching out into other areas. Again, this program, what we have is unique. There’s nothing else like it anywhere in the country. It’s a way to keep young people involved in the outdoors and educate them on a career. Anything from newspaper articles, articles in magazines to podcasts to radio interviews, we’re starting to see more of that take place. Anytime we can do something like that to promote this program and our university, we’re more than willing to share, to get the word out.

We want to reach as many people as we can regardless of where they’re located. Our application pool, even though we weren’t able to get them this year, we had applicants from Texas, California, Colorado, Minnesota and Michigan. There were sixteen different states where we received applications from this year and just year two of the program. We feel that we’re starting to reach those people. The only thing that’s going to help us do that, to reach our goal and to educate these young people is promoting and being able to promote through social media, through interviews. We’re all about it.

There's so much more out there that's available and a lot of young people just aren't aware of it Share on X

What about the Mossy Oak, Hoyt, this goes on and on. The people out there in the industry because it’s a very large industry, billions of dollars, but it’s a small industry. Have you reached out to Bill Jordan and said, “This is what we’re doing?”

We’ve reached out to a lot of different companies through the outdoor industry. Our very first meeting that we had was with an outdoor company. Being about an hour down the road, we went there, sat down, had a meeting with them and they jumped on board right away. They do a big scholarship to one of our incoming freshmen every year. It’s based on an essay that they do for their application process. They always pick the best candidate that they think would best represent their organization. We were grateful and thankful that they basically took a gamble on us being a new startup program and had the faith in us to put out a good product and something that they would put their name on. Outside of that, we’ve reached out to some other outdoor companies from the camo online to the bow manufacturers.

A lot of those companies have done things for us whether Mossy Oak invited us to their facilities to learn about branding, marketing and all the different divisions they have within Mossy Oak. It was a great hands-on learning experience for our students. The Resistance TV, Kyle Barefield, he’s jumped on board. Their group invites several students down every year down to Louisiana and we do a deer and duck hunt with them. Our people that we reach out to, they do all different types of things. It’s not a cookie cutter scenario where everybody has to do the same thing to support it. We have some people that donate hunt and trips for our students. We have some people that donate products for our students to use. Moultrie Cameras and Feeders, they’ve been a big asset to our program.

What we’ve seen is a lot of Alabama-based companies have been supporting and promoting what we do just because we’re here in their home state. We’re looking to branch out. As the program continues to grow and continue to gain momentum, we’re starting to get some exposure outside the state. We were honored to receive the Conservation Educator of The Year Award through the Alabama Wildlife Federation. That started to gain some national exposure as well and being nominated for some national awards. We’re starting to get out a little bit more and hopefully we can get more of these outdoor companies involved in what we’re doing.

For my audience, if you’ve got the connections, you know the people that might be interested in talking with William about the program, how would they get in touch with you?

They can get in touch with me several ways. You can go to our website, OutdoorScholars.Montevallo.edu. All of our contact information is on there, email address, phone numbers, that’s the best way. They can be like a lot of these students are. They reached out to us through social media with direct messages and things of that nature. All of our contact information is listed there on the website.

I get into program, I’m a freshman. It’s a four-year program. It’s my first year. What am I going to learn in a synopsis?

WTR 426 | President’s Outdoor Scholars Program
President’s Outdoor Scholars Program: Our students are given a task to take care of conservation projects.

It’s amazing what our students learn. From the outdoor aspect, our students are divided up into groups every year and they’re given a task to take care of a conservation project. We have several lined up this year. A land management project that is going to be broken down into segments, whether it’s taking care from the timber aspect, learning about timber growth, the things you need to do to have a good tree stand of timber. Population surveys through game cameras, deer populations, predator control, they’ll take care of that through trapping. We will do some planning of food plots and clearing of the land.

We’ll do a habitat restoration project on lakes here close to campus. Those kinds of things that we start off with from the go because even though they may not own a huge tract of land or work for an outfitter that is managing property, they may have a family farm that they need to take care of at some point in their lives. Even a leased piece of property that they’re a part of a hunting club. It’s teaching them things that they can give back to the outdoors, the environment and the critters that roam around to make it a better place than when they first came to it. That’s one of the big things that they do throughout the course of the year.

Secondly, we have a guest speaker series that involves bringing in different people from the outdoor industry to talk to these students. They talk to students about what they do for a living, how they got there and how a young person can possibly one day be in that same position. This allows the students to see what’s out there. Many young people when they think about careers related to the outdoors, they think your wildlife management, your forestry programs, they think having your own hunting or fishing show on TV. That’s what they think of being a game warden. That’s it.

There’s much more out there that’s available and a lot of young people aren’t aware of it. They’re being introduced to careers and opportunities that they possibly would have never thought of before this program. That’s big component of what we do. Some of our guest speakers that we’ve had over the last two years were biologists. They were people who run hunting lodges, ranches and someone who may invent a product that’s out on the market to game wardens to educators to people that may work for a nonprofit organization for the outdoors. They’re definitely exposed to a lot of people.

We also do community service project, it’s important for our students to give back. At some point in time, someone had to introduce them to the outdoors. We try to do the same thing through our program, is introduce other people to the outdoors and/or take people that may not be as privileged or had the resources to get out in the outdoors. This past year we did two different projects, community service project that related to children. We took several groups of special needs children out fishing through an organization here in Central Alabama, it’s called Gone Fishin’, Just Not Wishin’ where they brought in students from three different counties that had special needs and let them enjoy several days out of the water fishing. It was a great experience for our students. The students that have been here more than one year, they love doing this event every year. It’s great to see them give back.

Another program that we helped with is Kids Outdoors. They had a big fundraising event to help raise money to take terminally ill children on different hunting and fishing trip. We were able to help with that fundraiser as well. Anytime that we can give back and promote the outdoors, that’s what we want to do. Lastly, probably the most fun that the students have are getting to go on the different hunting and fishing trips that are available to them. Students in our program, as long as they maintain their grades, they’re eligible each year for a trip. Our trips can range anything from deer hunt to duck hunt to fishing trips, in shore or offshore, turkey hunt, boat fishing trips, whatever you can think of, we line that up for our students to introduce them to new outdoor experiences.

Most of our students grow up deer hunting and bass fishing. I was the same way, that’s basically all I did as a child. As I got older I had other people introducing me to different aspects of the outdoors. We try to do the same too, and it hit me a couple months ago at how these young people have such a direct impact on the economics of the outdoor industry. For example, we introduced one of our current students to waterfowl hunting. He had never been on a waterfowl hunt ever before.

It’s awesome to see young people grow in areas and be introduced to something new and have such a deep passion for it. Share on X

Being able to take him on a trip, we did an early season goose hunt and we had a fabulous time. We had a lot of success in the field, he learned a lot and it introduced a new passion to him. After that hunt, he went out on all this waterfowl hunting gear, duck hunting a lot through the winter. After the season was over, he went out and he bought a Labrador Retriever. He’s training it right now. He’s gotten into duck lease and he’s spending all this money related to his newfound passion.

We’re seeing that a lot with our students. They’re finding new things not that they’re going away from their typical go-tos, their deer hunting and bass fishing, they’re adding more things to their toolbox of things that they enjoy doing. That’s awesome to see these young people grow in those areas, be introduced to something new, pick it up and have such a deep passion for it. That’s what you would expect from our program. I’m sure you’re sitting there thinking, “I wish I could go back to school and do all these things.”

I did because I went hunting to eat. Mississippi Flyway and across Wisconsin, rough routes and we’d catch walleyes, we’d shoot duck and geese and then we’d shoot a deer because that was food. I was a poor college student. That was my necessity almost, but people who wanted to do that. I had a great time and I was fortunate to have buddies that either had deer, had a boat, I had a Grumman sport canoe.

I had a little trans and we put a two horsepower on it. I’ve been lucky that way, but to have a curriculum like you’re talking about really they’re experiencing. They’re hands are getting dirty, they’re seeing the impact or helping other people. I hear all that. What about when they graduate? Do they have reading, writing, arithmetic, history or another language, like a liberal arts school?

Why the program was initially set up, it was an extracurricular activity or club. As we move forward and as the demand grows, we have started a new program called Outdoor Resource Marketing. It’s going to run through our College of Business. It’s starting to get a curriculum base to it. It will be a minor. We’re working towards a major. It will be a couple of years down the line. It’s trial and error, see if it works and do all the paperwork, everything you need to do to make it happen. Our students don’t necessarily have to be in this program, this degree-seeking program to be involved in the Outdoor Scholars Program, it’s another option. Currently our students can come in and major in any program that Montevallo has to offer. After looking at our courses that we offer, majors that we offer, just about any program our students choose can tie back to the outdoors in some capacity.

This is a good thing because they may not find a job right out of college that interests them in the outdoors, there just may not be anything available. They have that degree to fall back on, so they’ll have a job once they graduate school, then they can always go back to that area in the outdoors or they may get lucky and find a job. We’re hoping that we can create a funnel to the job market to our students in our program, so when they do graduate we can help guide them along the way. We’re excited about the start of this new minor. What we’re hoping that this will do is give our students a good, basic background on different areas that they could use once they hit the job market.

What we’ve been able to see and talk with many different people, these folks that work within these companies, the outdoors, they wear many hats. They don’t just do one hat. Their job involves many different things. In a d

WTR 426 | President’s Outdoor Scholars Program
President’s Outdoor Scholars Program: This will give our students a good basic background on different areas that they could use once they hit the job market.

ay and time, with social media and the marketing efforts, through digital ads and things of that nature, we feel it’s important that they have some videography background, editing classes to go on top of the business courses that they may take. Some courses dealing in retail, even some that are environmental studies courses, the biology. They’ll be well-rounded. Being a liberal arts institution, that’s what it’s about, having a liberal arts degree is being well-rounded. We hear people tell our faculty and staff here all the time, “How prepared are students are when they graduate college? How they’re able to think on their feet and think outside the box?” That’s what the liberal arts education does is it makes you think and adding this degree program into our already existing Outdoor Scholars Program. I feel like it’s going to make us that much more successful.

Two questions, has anybody given you a lab yet like a farm?

We do. The university owns about 100 acres three miles from campus. That’s our playground, our outdoor playground. We have access to that. That’s where a lot of our projects will be this year. We’ve even done a few hunts on it last year. It’s an opportunity for our students to reap the benefits of their hard work and see something through from start to finish. You go out, you plow the dirt, you put the seed in the ground, it starts to grow.

You get to go out and enjoy a good afternoon hunt. That’s what it’s about. It’s about putting your work in and making it better than the way you found it. Having a good time and getting to share it with other people that have that same passion as you. We’re fortunate to have something like that right here, right out the backdoor campus. It’s a great opportunity for our students.

You spend the whole semester out there, all different aspects. They’d be learning because, as we know, food plot businesses are going crazy. Everybody’s a farmer now and rightfully so because it’s going to make the deer healthier. It’s a huge learning process. I know that from personal experience. Let’s switch it up. What about QDMA? What’s your relationship with QDMA?

We shared a couple emails back and forth. We never could get together on anything. We want to broaden our reach of who we come in contact with, who we’re able to work with. There is a group that we worked closely with here in the State of Alabama called The Management Advantage. They’re in the process of helping us with some of this land management tactics and being able to work with the students in different regards. They’ve been able to help us a lot in reaching some of these folks in the industry. We would love to form a great working relationship with organizations like them, even some of the nonprofits like Ducks Unlimited, Delta Waterfowl, NWTF, those types of organizations. We could definitely partner with them and reap the benefits from both sides of being able to work together for a common goal.

Folks, if you’re a member of these, on their board or personally involved in some of these conservation groups, reach out to William and find out about what they’re doing. As we all know, recruitment in the outdoors industry is key, in the hunting industry it’s really key.

By having kids that graduate from their program and have them part of your part of your company, part of your group only strengthens it and allows them to tell the story to a huge audience. That’s what we have to do is tell our story, because there’s a lot of misinformation about what we do, how we do it, why we do it. When the program that Dr. Stewart has initiated and Bill’s running, there’s a huge opportunity here. That’s my two cents. Talk about your hunting tradition. You mentioned that whitetails and bass. Let’s talk a little about that.

That’s how I got my introduction to the outdoors. I can remember taking the first trip down to the hunting camp as a four-year-old little boy and go through work days, throwing sticks side of the road, getting out and playing in the dirt. That’s how I got to start. I can remember begging my dad to take me deer hunting. Finally, once I hit four or five years old, was able to go and to see the passion he had for the animals and the outdoors, there’s no doubt it rubbed off on me.

You reap the benefits from both sides by being able to work together for a common goal. Share on X

There were times I can remember as a child that it was time to leave deer camp and head home. I’d cry because I didn’t want to leave, I wanted to stay. Anytime that I had to go, it was rough. Deer hunting is a family thing and being able to deer hunt with other family members through the years. Now, I have a family of my own. Being able to introduce them to deer hunting and outdoors is a great honor and privilege to be able to share what I’ve been taught through the years. Now, more so than ever, I didn’t think I would ever reach this stage, but I enjoy getting out and just sitting there.

Whether I see anything or harvest anything, it’s about being out in the outdoors, away from the everyday hustle and bustle that goes on. Being able to work with the land and grow deer, I think a lot of people will like that these days. Being able to keep up with your herd and know what you have. Being able to grow the whitetails, it’s very rewarding. I live in an area here in Alabama and hunt in what is called the Black Belt. Going out, being able to see an abundance of deer and wildlife just about every time you go out, we take those things for granted. We have to continue to plug along and again, make it better than the way we found it.

Deer hunting is definitely where I got my start. Through the years, I’ve developed a passion for turkey hunting and waterfowl hunting. I pretty much do it all now. I love every bit of it. Anytime I can get out there and spend time with family and friends, it’s a great experience. The outdoors has made me who I am now. Some of these young people may not have those same experiences and being able to introduce them to the same things that I was introduced to, that’s the most rewarding part.

Mr. Crawford, well said. Thank you for giving us a complete overview of the President’s Outdoor Scholars Program. With that, thank you for being a guest on our show.

Thanks for having us.

 

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