Kim S. Uhlik’s research while affiliated with San Jose State University and other places

Throughout time and across cultures, the relationship between Homo sapiens and the natural environment has played a central role in identifying and defining aspects of the realm of spirituality, wherein humans seek to make sense of the universe and find meaning in their own existence. Within outdoor recreation and experiential education (OREE) programs—implicitly or explicitly—the natural environment is a distinctive component of both leadership development and participation outcomes. Relationships among people, whether as individuals or within societies, exhibit myriad dichotomies, such as violent/peaceful or cruel/loving, that are more accurately arrayed as continuums ranging from predation through partnership and nullification through affirmation. Leadership philosophies mirror that arrangement. In similar fashion, the natural environment can be conceptualized in terms of its sacredness, ranging from primal (Nature, capitalized) through modern (nature, lower-case), while the realm of spirituality reflects cultural and personal attributes derived from the degree of sacredness. This paper integrates an existing model of societal/personal relationships and leadership philosophies within an overarching conception of Nature's sacredness and human spirituality, providing OREE professionals with a conceptually based but practical framework for self-assessing the level of congruence existing between the model's moral/ethical implications and the actual outcomes derived from their own organizations' philosophical positions and programmatic choices.

Throughout time and across cultures, the relationship between Homo sapiens and the natural environment has played a central role in identifying and defining aspects of the realm of spirituality, wherein humans seek to make sense of the universe and find meaning in their own existence. Within outdoor recreation and experiential education (OREE) programs—implicitly or explicitly—the natural environment is a distinctive component of both leadership development and participation outcomes. Relationships among people, whether as individuals or within societies, exhibit myriad dichotomies, such as violent/peaceful or cruel/loving, that are more accurately arrayed as continuums ranging from predation through partnership and nullification through affirmation. Leadership philosophies mirror that arrangement. In similar fashion, the natural environment can be conceptualized in terms of its sacredness, ranging from primal (Nature, capitalized) through modern (nature, lower-case), while the realm of spirituality reflects cultural and personal attributes derived from the degree of sacredness. This paper integrates an existing model of societal/personal relationships and leadership philosophies within an overarching conception of Nature's sacredness and human spirituality, providing OREE professionals with a conceptually based but practical framework for self-assessing the level of congruence existing between the model's moral/ethical implications and the actual outcomes derived from their own organizations' philosophical positions and programmatic choices.

The influence of students' learning styles has been increasingly recognized as an integral component of effective higher education; therefore, application of learning styles to academic advising is equally relevant. As academic advisors address student learning styles in the hope of promoting greater student success, the contribution of advisors' own learning styles has received little attention. In addition to establishing a critical baseline, analyzing the learning style profiles of 30 academic advisors reveals that, although composite advisor learning style scores show substantial congruence with an a priori model, the disparity between any two individual advisor's contrasting styles was as much as 90%, leaving only a 10% learning style compatibility on which to base the advising process. Relative Emphasis: research, practice, theory

Nature continually impresses humans in its role as an omnipresent, if not ultimate, source of power. One hallmark of outdoor and adventure education (OAE) has been its presumption that humans' interaction with aspects of Nature's “power” promotes the antecedents of leadership: measurable, persistent psychological effects and behavioral modifications including self-awareness, self-reliance, and stewardship. Recently, an unresolved discourse has arisen involving the guiding philosophies and actual outcomes derived from programs assembled under various combinations of the terms outdoor, adventure, environment, recreation, and education. Unifying these five terms is leadership potential mediated through Nature's metaphorical majesty and demonstrable power. However, Nature can be an ally, a medium, or an enemy, and outcomes resulting from OAE programs should be congruent with a consciously examined, coherent philosophy. A theoretical model depicts combinations of society, civilization, and culture placed along a continuum ranging from predation to partnership to demonstrate that the type of leadership emanating from any two or more perspectives may be very different. Nature is a complex system that is both predatory and partnering, and leadership in OAE must purposefully select and design programs that embrace the appropriate philosophy of Nature.

Students completing a time calculation exercise identified the International Date Line (IDL) as a conceptual source of confusion and poor performance. From the early 1950s to the present, various geography textbooks have promulgated misstatements involving the occurrence of midnight at the IDL. This condition's persistence and ubiquity manifests a widespread fundamental misunderstanding, providing an opportunity to (a) illuminate the low level of student success when solving an IDL‐influenced problem, (b) present an overview of textbook error, (c) explore how the evolution of the standard time system led to IDL errors in geography textbooks, and (d) offer proof dispelling these misconceptions.

Although educators are recognizing that academic advising is a crucial component in promoting students' academic success and personal development, the relationship between individuals' learning styles and advising has not been explored. Nevertheless, a) attention to learning style produces measurable improvement in learning and satisfaction; b) advising sessions are learning opportunities; c) although learning styles are fairly evenly distributed among college students, traditional advising methods accentuate the feeling and thinking styles; d) Leisure Science students favor the doing and visual learning styles over both the feeling and thinking styles; and e) students consistently have expressed general dissatisfaction with the advising process. To accommodate visually inclined students - especially in the absence of doing oriented methods - advisors can supplement traditional verbal exchanges and published text-based course descriptions with visually oriented materials. Results of a prior implementation and a more current survey revealed sustained student interest in an advising pyramid that graphically organizes Leisure Science curricula within a pyramidal structure.