To Diversify Membership, FOP Pilots New Program

Harvard’s First Year Outdoor Program piloted a less intensive week-long trip this summer intended to encourage more minority students to participate in the popular freshman orientation program—part of a larger effort to address ongoing issues with the program's diversity.

As opposed to traditional FOP trips—which typically involve a week of backpacking, canoeing, or outdoor service projects held just before incoming freshmen come to campus—the new program brought around 20 students to the Harvard Forest for activities during the day, according to Paul R. “Coz” Teplitz ’03-’09, the director of FOP. The freshmen then returned to cabins at night, he said.

The pilot cost the same as FOP’s other orientation programs—$425.

“[It] was designed to be a little less—to use the term we’ve been throwing out—‘hardcore,’” Teplitz said. “For most of the programs, you were moving from place to place each day and that, we were worried, we’re putting people off.”

FOP has faced criticism for a lack of socioeconomic and racial diversity among its participants, given the cost of the program, though it does offer need-based financial aid. This year, according to The Crimson’s annual survey of the freshman class, 67 percent of freshman respondents that participated in the program said their parents have a combined annual income exceeding $125,000.

Teplitz said 185 of the 431 first-years who participated in FOP this summer received financial aid, or 43 percent. A total of $63,000 was given out in financial aid, up from the $57,250 distributed last year. The average aid award was $338, or about 80 percent of the program fee.

Teplitz said the pilot targeted freshmen who were not as interested in a fully immersive outdoors experience; historically, according to the National Park Service, many of such people have been minorities.

Teplitz and Katherine W. Steele, the College’s director for freshman programming, said they thought overall reception to the pilot program has been positive, though there is some uncertainty about whether it will be continued next year. FOP has not collected any demographic data on this year’s participants, so Teplitz said he is unsure whether the pilot program affected the makeup of FOP.

In addition to rolling out a pilot program, FOP continued a previous effort to diversify the composition of its participants. For the second year, FOP’s leadership—working with the Freshman Dean's Office—matched the percentage of financial aid that a student receives from the College.

“If you get 100 percent coverage of your expenses term-time, then there’s no cost to doing FOP,” Dean of Freshman Thomas A. Dingman ’67 said. “I don’t know what impact that had on enrollment, but… I got to guess that that helps a lot, to make sure that people who want to do FOP can afford it.”

Funding for both FOP’s financial aid initiative and the pilot program did not come from the FDO or the College, but rather individual donors—program alumni, parents of FOP participants, and the parents of FOP leaders.

Last summer, a donor committed to multiple years of funding for the program, ensuring that the program can continue to match the percentage of financial aid students receive during the term.

“That relieves a lot of pressure regarding the aid,” Teplitz said.

He and Steele both attributed the ability of FOP to offer its new pilot program, and the amount of financial aid it has given out, to the generosity of the program’s donors.

“I would say that both the FDO office and the College have been really supportive, but at this point the donors are the ones who are supplying most of the money that we needed,” Teplitz said.

—Staff Writer Derek G. Xiao can be reached at derek.xiao@thecrimson.com. Follow him on Twitter @derekgxiao.