It features 63,500 square feet of indoor recreational space and an additional 15,000 square feet outdoors. The Southside facility is near the intersection of Bizzell Street and Mosher Lane, across from the Commons Residence Halls and in close proximity to the Corps of Cadets Residence Halls and the A&M golf course. ’79 and Rec Sports Director Rick Hall welcoming the campus community to the latest in a growing family of recreational facilities on campus. The event featured a ribbon-cutting ceremony, tours and prizes, as well as speakers including Student Body President Case Harris ’23, Vice President for Student Affairs Brig. Texas A&M University Rec Sports today opened its Southside Recreation Center with a grand opening celebration. Marcus concurred: “We met so many good friends through the program-people we still keep in touch with today.Laura McKenzie/Texas A&M University Division of Marketing & Communications ![]() “Jason and everyone at OA have been great stewards of the outdoors,” Lauren said. They work as a team, have meaningful conversations with strangers and build real connections.” Those connections and experiences have made a lasting impression on former students like Lauren ’08 and Marcus Dunn ’06 ’09, who established a $25,000 need-based scholarship to help incoming freshmen attend Venture Camp. ![]() ![]() “Students who travel with us slow down and get away from the hustle and bustle of their normal lives. “There are clear physiological, psychological and even spiritual benefits to being in nature,” Kurten stated. After she lost her battle with cancer in 2015, the Department of Recreational Sports received a bequest from her estate to help establish an endowed scholarship to support OA student staff members. “Those were her favorite things in the world, and she saw the positive impact those activities had on students.” Kott directed the program until her retirement in 2013. “Patsy loved to paddle, scuba dive, kayak and canoe,” Kurten said. An avid traveler and outdoorswoman, Kott wanted to provide Aggies with access to the natural world’s most thrilling, awe-inspiring and perspective-shifting experiences. When Kurten’s mentor, the late Patsy Kott ’90, founded OA in 1985, it was one of the first outdoor recreation programs in the state. Our bread and butter has been teaching people skills they can use for a lifetime and providing them what they need to explore the outdoors. OA’s services include organized trips for Aggies and Bryan-College Station residents, survival skills classes, an exhaustive collection of outdoor gear available for rent and the Student Recreation Center’s impressive indoor rock-climbing wall. “Our bread and butter has been teaching people skills they can use for a lifetime and providing them what they need to explore the outdoors,” he said. “We hope they see their first time as an Aggie as an opportunity to push themselves out of their comfort zone.”įor nine years until recently, Kurten directed Outdoor Adventures (OA), a campus program under Rec Sports that coordinates Venture Camp and other initiatives helping Aggies experience nature. “They talk about Aggie traditions while backpacking through New Mexico or canoeing down the Buffalo River,” said Jason Kurten ’98 ’09. ![]() But instead of a traditional summer camp, their experience is structured around a weeklong outdoor expedition. These hikers are incoming Texas A&M University freshmen participating in Venture Camp, an orientation program similar to Fish Camp. But unlike other nature trips, they’ll also talk about another special place where the terrain is decidedly flat, but where a spirit stands as tall as the imposing cliffs. After the hikers set up camp that night, their guides will tell them more about Gila, the first designated wilderness of its kind in the United States. A group of young hikers below gazes up in awe at the rocks, which jut like a massive fence outlining the water and its surrounding grassland. In New Mexico’s Gila Wilderness, the hills roll and cut down abruptly into cliff faces falling into the riverbank.
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