AEE West Region
Ready to Connect and Have Fun? Join Us at the 2023 West Region Conference!
March 3rd -5th
Creating Just and Transformative Cycles of Experiential Education for All!
UC Santa Cruz’s Center for Agroecology
Check out our conference amazing location Cowell Ranch Hay Barn
We are very excited to announce that our regional conference will be held at UC Santa Cruz’s 30 acre Farm and Garden, March 3-5, 2023! Come connect in this amazing and historical location for experiential education, share wisdom, and advance ways to build comm-UNITY!
Download the Conference Program PDF here!
The experiential education model is inherently cyclical, weaving intergenerational context and insights. This year’s gathering centers on generative questions for our community of practice that ensure our models speak to the communities we teach and live within. Guiding questions include, how do we grow our programs and models through a process of ideation, action, and reflection that is intersectional and equity driven? Secondly, how do we as educators and students attain our goal to provide a learning environment in which everyone can thrive? We invite you to join this fun and incredible gathering while we reflect upon experiential education furthering how we can continue to grow transformative cycles together!
Conference Directions & Parking
The conference will be hosted at the UC Santa Cruz Cowell Ranch Hay Barn and UC Santa Cruz Farm. Signage will be displayed from the base of campus to direct you to the address noted below. When you check-in at the Hay Barn we’ll provide a parking permit and you can park in lots 115 and 116 (as shown below in the “Entrance and Hay Barn Parking Map” link. Parking is free after 5pm on Friday so if you are arriving after 5pm on Friday you don’t need a permit and can park and walk from lots 115/116 to the Hay Barn. There are a limited number of spaces available in the Hay Barn lot itself (including disability access spaces).
Check-in will be at the Cowell Ranch Hay Barn from 2-3pm on Friday, March 3 and 8-9am on Saturday and Sunday, March 4 and 5.
Conference registration includes:
-Interactive musical playnote reception and meal Friday night
-Continental Breakfast Saturday and Sunday
-Lunch and snacks on Saturday & Sunday
-Interactive Keynote and dinner on Friday evening
-Entertainment and bonfire on Saturday night
-All workshop sessions
We are excited to offer accessible rates for this year’s WRAEE conference including supplemental scholarships to ensure ALL can join us at this incredible event! Registration goes to cover our costs for hosting this amazing conference with regional partners. Please share with colleagues, friends, and in your networks. If you are interested in a scholarship please send an email to: wraeeconference@gmail.com
Free Camping available at Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park
Camping spots will be available at Henry Cowell State Park at no cost. Please check the box during registration to indicate if you would like to reserve a camping spot. We have equipment available; tents, sleeping pads, and sleeping bags. Once you register, you will receive a google form to request items you need.
There will also be affordable lodging at Paradox Hotel which is not from our venue. Contact Terry @ 831-601-6952 for a special conference rate at the Paradox Hotel!
If you would like assistance in finding transportation, a roommate or carpool option, please call Terry @ 831-601-6952 or Kym @ 831.234.2046.
For Early Registration rates please review below:
FREE: For presenters and onsite support/service crew volunteers (submit a workshop today)
Early Bird deadline 2/15
- Member $50
- Non-member $75
- Student Member $40
- Student Non-member $50
- Presenter $0
- Service Crew $0
After Early Bird
- Member $65
- Non-member $85
- Student Member $50
- Student Non-member $60
- Presenter $0
- Service Crew $0
Questions? Email:
Nina Roberts Scholarship Fund
We are excited to offer accessible rates for this year’s WRAEE conference including supplemental scholarships to ensure ALL can join us at this incredible event! Registration goes to cover our costs for hosting this amazing conference with regional partners. Please share with colleagues, friends, and in your networks. If you are interested in a scholarship please send an email to: wraeeconference@gmail.com
Nina Roberts was and still is my soul sister. The intersection of our lives, loves, passions, connection to the outdoors, adventure and social justice bound us together through time, space, heart and now beyond the veil. Some of our early work together focused on diversity & humanistic risk management. We trained, published and presented workshops at Aee, the Wilderness Risk Management conferences and combined our consulting business. Our synergy, love and collaboration was a gift to both of us and we knew we had some serious work to do to try to make the world a more just an equitable place and space in the experiential/adventure education and beyond. Our most recent project was to publish a text book focused on social justice and the outdoors. We were in final talks with Rutledge publishing, when Nina’s cancer flared. We had to fall back and regroup, and thus we reimagined a DEIB field guide, which you will learn more about at the conference. It was a true labor of LOVE and captures Nina’s spirit/legacy throughout.
In 2016, Nina and Terry asked me to be the keynote at the AEE West conference when I moved to the Northbay of California (thank you Nina) and with an open heart, I accepted. Nina was a fixture at AEE regional conferences throughout her career and at many AEE conferences across the U.S. Naming a scholarship after her in the AEE west region is fitting, as she spent much of her impactful career in at San Francisco State University and supported the work that of AEE by bringing numerous students and colleagues alike.
I close by sharing information on many of Nina’s collective accomplishments and legacy below. I hope you invest in buying the DEIB field guide to help spread social justice concepts and lived experiences expressed by those who took risks of sharing their stories.
The Inspiration for this DEIB field guide was Dr. Nina Roberts, a longtime professor, mentor, scholar, and advocate in the SFSU Department of Recreation, Parks & Tourism (RPT) passed away after battling cancer. Nina was a passionate and inspiring leader, a longtime park professional and an advocate, a renowned researcher, and a sought-after expert nationally recognized for her work and commitment to social and environmental justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion with a desire to break down barriers relating to park access and recreation opportunities on public lands. Nina’s primary focus in her career was on experiential learning and connecting urban communities with public lands. She knew that parks are important to our country’s well-being and that public spaces had to be accessible and inclusive for everyone. This project was underway when she passed, but her colleagues, friends and family have carried this through to completion to continue environmental and social justice education.
Please carry Nina’s social justice torch forward. She’s cheering us on…you can bet on that.
The West Region includes the following states and provinces:
California, Hawaii, Nevada, Baja California and Baja California Sur (Mexico)
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