PANDEMIC TURNS PRESCOTT CAMP INTO COLLEGE EXPERIMENT
The pavement ends as you turn the corner into Friendly Pines, a camp that typically serves children in Arizona’s Prescott National Forest.
A green sign with three evergreen trees points the way to wood cabins, a treehouse and plenty of fresh air.
This fall, the site about 15 minutes south of downtown Prescott will become an experiment that tests what college can look like during the pandemic.
A company called A Place Beyond will bring dozens of college students from different universities across the country to Friendly Pines, where they will have an outdoorsy, dorm-like experience despite their classes moving online.
The students will continue to take classes at their respective schools, all online, while living in the cabins, eating meals on-site, getting support like mentoring and workshops from A Place Beyond staff and exploring the outdoors. They will operate in a “bubble,” like the NBA, to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
“We are not a school,” A Place Beyond notes on its website. “We just make yours better.”
It’s an idea born from the pandemic, but one that its founder hopes can live beyond it, at sites throughout the country. And the first test will happen in Arizona, at the Friendly Pines camp in Yavapai County. The program starts on September 9.
The company plans to take existing kids camps, many of which were hit hard financially by the pandemic, and convert them into semester-long programs for college students who want to take classes online while getting a kind of in-person option that’s likely safer than a large university campus.
“What we’re trying to do is just add more intention and a little bit of a different flavor than what most colleges can offer,” said Ciarán Willis, the cofounder and lead instructor at A Place Beyond.
Other potential sites in California couldn’t open yet because of regulations there about congregate settings, Willis said.
Costs similar to some on-campus living prices
Students will pay $9,900 to spend September through December at the camp. Up to 60 students could attend, though Willis said 30-35 are set to arrive in early September. Another cohort could arrive later as more people apply, he said.
A Place Beyond’s website compares the fee to room and board costs at major universities like New York University and the University of California-Berkeley to show the price is similar to what students pay to live on those campuses.
At Arizona State University, on-campus housing costs range from more than $3,000 up to more than $9,000 in Tempe, depending on the dorm, room arrangement and shared rooms or bathrooms. Meal plans range from $1,160 to $2,850 per semester.
Joy Reeves, a 20-year-old junior at Duke University, and her twin brother, who goes to college in Ohio, drive across the country to come to the camp. They split up after high school, so spending the semester together will be a bonding experience, she said.
Duke’s on-campus housing prioritized freshmen and sophomores, meaning Reeves could live in Durham or stay at her parents’ house in Maryland. Then she saw an Instagram ad for A Place Beyond while “stressfully scrolling” through her feed this summer.
She’s outdoorsy and studies environmental science and policy. The campus experiences of meeting new people and learning new ideas rank highly for Reeves, and they didn’t seem possible at Duke this semester.
“My friends have been asking me about it. I’ve kind of told them that I had a quarter-life crisis moment where I was like, you know, I just turned 20, and I want to have as many new experiences as possible with people. And this seems like a good chance to have those new experiences,” she said.
She receives a full-ride scholarship at Duke, which covers room and board. The university allowed her to use that scholarship to cover the costs of A Place Beyond, she said.
“As of right now, everything lines up pretty closely to cover the expenses of A Place Beyond,” Reeves said.
Willis first said he would need about 50 students to break even. He later said the break-even point is now 30 students, after the program put some profit sharing in place around enrollment to reduce costs as they try to increase enrollment.
They have had dozens more applicants who won’t end up coming, he said. A major part of the vetting process involves making sure students will follow rules designed to keep everyone safe, like agreeing to be part of a bubble and not engage in higher-risk activities. Ensuring buy-in for rules is essential, as is keeping the group relatively small, he said.
If the group was bigger, “all of the sudden you start to not know everybody, and the community feels a little less connected,” Willis said.
Jonah Karsh, a junior at the University of Miami who studies music, wants to make connections. His school gave students the option of in-person or online classes, and he didn’t think it was wise to return to Florida and a large campus this fall.
He heard about A Place Beyond from a family friend who also will attend. He’s not an outdoorsy person, but he hasn’t had much opportunity to hang out with peers this summer in the Chicago area, where he’s living with his family, and didn’t think he would in Miami, either.
For Karsh, a major part of college entails exploring your interests and forming relationships with other people.
“The richness of that part of the college experience would be pretty absent if I was on campus, just because of all the enforcement of the COVID regulations that we had to do,” he said.
Karsh’s parents are covering the cost of A Place Beyond, in place of what they would normally be paying for the dorms. The camp is a bit more expensive than a semester at Miami, he said.
Willis said the goal over time is to increase enrollment slightly to drive costs down and make it more accessible to more students. They are also working to get funds, through grants or partnerships, that could help people who don’t have the means to afford nearly $10,000 for the program, he said.
“It’s something that we’re working through and definitely a big target for us,” he said.
Karsh hopes to make friends with similar interests, something he’s had a hard time doing at the University of Miami.
“The University of Miami is not a very nerdy school, and I am a very nerdy person,” he said. “And I chose the University of Miami specifically because of the music program, but I’ve found that outside of the music program, I’ve had trouble finding people that I click with, and I think the kinds of people that are doing a program like this are kind of more my people.”
How will they keep COVID-19 out?
Reeves and Karsh both said the program’s COVID-19 protocols played an important role in their decision to enroll, and they made sure to ask questions about how students would stay as safe as possible.
A Place Beyond will operate as a bubble for some time, Willis said.
Students initially will wear masks and physically distance upon arrival, for about three days. After three days, students will get tested for COVID-19. Testing upon arrival wouldn’t capture a viral load picked up while traveling.
The program partnered with Spectrum Health Clinic in Prescott to get same-day COVID-19 test results, the program’s website says.
If people test positive, they will isolate. After the bubble is solidified, students won’t need to wear masks or distance.
After about a month of figuring out their normal patterns, the program will reassess the risk of COVID-19 in the area and decide whether to open up outside activities like getting take-out food and grocery shopping. If these activities are
opened, regular testing would start.
Willis said it would be simpler to stay just at the camp all semester, but he believes it’s important for students to learn how to assess risks and make good decisions informed by public health, since that’s the new norm for living through a pandemic.
Universities around the country have tried to bring students back to campus in some form. Many have seen positive cases as a result, with some pausing inperson classes to quell outbreaks.
In Arizona, all three state universities have seen positive cases among their students since returning to campus.
The small size of the A Place Beyond group, their remote location and their COVID-19 protocols make for lower risk than a traditional college campus, Willis said.
A kids camp transforms to an adult educational experience
A camp that typically houses children requires some conversion to work for adult students.
Willis and others now live at Friendly Pines and work to make these changes, like converting a sewing room into tables for studying, and making a small cabin into a hangout space with a couch, tables and a piano. Cabins where students will live are being spaced out.
Better internet than a camp in the woods usually provides also is necessary, and they’re working to ensure there’s enough bandwidth for 60 people to be on Zoom at once, Willis said.
A Place Beyond is renting the camp space from CampWay, a startup from two former Friendly Pines employees that hopes to use summer camps as rentals to help them survive the pandemic.
CampWay has rented out cabins for Friendly Pines this summer on Airbnb. Once A Place Beyond’s students arrive, they will be the exclusive tenant.
Both A Place Beyond and CampWay said they wanted to preserve the outdoor industry and those who work in it.
Willis has a background in outdoor leadership programs and has long wanted to start his own program. Many of the instructors also worked in the industry and lost their jobs during the pandemic, he said.
CampWay’s staff also will provide meals. Having a long-term tenant like A Place Beyond allows CampWay to keep people on staff and provide them some certainty, said Matt Gilmer, CampWay’s cofounder.
“Our goal is to try to step in and help people figure out how they can utilize their property to get some money in the door and support themselves during this,” Gilmer said.
Unique idea for higher education
There’s nothing in the higher education landscape that’s quite like what A Place Beyond is attempting.
Some colleges offer semester-long programs focused in the outdoors, but those are exclusively for their students. There are outdoor programs, like Outward Bound, but those typically involve learning leadership and outdoor skills, not completing college classes.
A Place Beyond is sort of like studying abroad, except it’s not abroad and the students all go to different colleges.
Some students across the country have rented large houses far from their campuses to live together and save money, according to the New York Times.
Another plan, the U Experience, sought to rent out hotel rooms to students who wanted to get away from their parents’ basements for a “bubble campus” idea, though plans for that fizzled.
At the camp near Prescott, dozens of students arrive next week. Many already started their semesters online at their respective colleges, and A Place Beyond’s offerings will add to their existing schedules.
An example of a student’s schedule at A Place Beyond shows online classes at their university, workshops on personal finance and songwriting, and activities like trail runs and bouldering.
On its website, the program says it offers things university housing doesn’t, like mentoring, advising and workshops. At many colleges, university housing does offer similar programs and support services, according to the Association of College & University Housing Officers — International.
University housing programs include highly trained staff who are well-versed in important topics for college students, like wellness, leadership development and crisis management, said Holly Stapleton, the association’s chief of staff.
“Programming of this nature is core to the residential experience. As key connectors to other areas of campus, other student service areas, and faculty, campus housing programs typically have the ability to leverage the talent on campus to offer a robust set of offerings/ resources,” Stapleton said via email.
COVID-19 has greatly affected university housing as well, requiring colleges to house fewer students, use space differently and put public health protocols in place, she said.
“This has led to the need for campus housing departments to develop community and offer support in some different ways,” Stapleton said.
Willis said the first site is in Arizona because local regulations allowed the program to start. Two sites in California have not started yet because local regulations about congregate settings prevent such a program at this time, he said.
Terri Farneti, public health coordinator for Yavapai County Community Health Services, said the county has worked with A Place Beyond and Friendly Pines on this program.
“They are taking recommended safety precautions such as: limiting students in dorms, keeping them in a two week quarantine when they arrive to the camp, promoting outdoor areas and physical distancing, using masks when they are unable to physically distance, etc.,” Farneti said.
A Place Beyond doesn’t require an educational license from the state, because they aren’t really a school, said Kevin LaMountain, executive director of the Arizona State Board for Private Postsecondary Education.
“It seems like a way to lease off-site dorm space with educational support without being connected to any university or institution. Interesting idea and I’ve not seen it before. That said, under our statutes, we would not require licensure,” LaMountain said.
Willis is eyeing sites in California, Colorado and Wyoming for potential spring programs, depending on interest and local regulations, in addition to the Arizona site.
He hopes the idea can outlive the pandemic as a way to provide a more personalized, intentional experience for college students.
“A lot of people want to get their degree from NYU, but they don’t want to be in New York City. So, giving students more choice, I think, feels like an important and worthwhile thing to keep shooting at,” Willis said.