Talk:Outward Bound USA

NCOBS merge proposal
I vote yes. The NCOBS article is a short stub, with little info. It would fit with this article. -- Jtneill - Talk 10:58, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

NPOV?
This article, while not gushingly positive, contains nothing about the negative points and controversy surrounding OB: deaths, advisability of crash-training children for difficult wilderness pursuits, environmental impact, qualifications of the instructors.... Will do some digging for solid, substantiated facts, but help appreciated. --Jnik 13:31, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree. This recent article (http://www.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/news/outward-bound.html) may be citable. WhiteCat 08:51, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree. This reads like sales copy. Certainly these kinds of programs have upsides, but there are a lot of serious problems which can result from the overall business model, staffing, and philosophy. Briefly looking over the past edits, it does not appear that there was previously a discussion of controversy. Wxidea

Outward Bound Has successfully served thousands of students. The Elissa Santry incident was very tragic but it is also one isolated incident. Please dont form an opinion based on one piece of news. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.114.228.148 (talk) 21:58, August 26, 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps to present the most accurate information you should aquire a copy of the Outward Bound organizations official statement on the Santry incident AND use the editorial from National Geographic. "Outward Bound" rearranged their buisness unit in 2005 resulting in a merger of most of their schools/units across the US. Since its inception as a sailing program in Wales, Outward Bound schools were able to be started anywhere in the world by qualified individuals. The premise remained the same; to follow the guidelines of Kurt Hahn's educational philosophy. Outward Bound is not a Wilderness Therapy program and participants are carefully screened on for appropriateness and physical health. Every Outward Bound staff that works for the merged entity of Outward Bound Wilderness recieves the Student Management Skills Training. This training informs instructors on building rapport, presenting curriculum, contracting to decrease negative behaviors, and increases the skills of every instructor to make the course a positive one for every student. 69.205.167.179 (talk) 13:41, 20 November 2007 (UTC) Lizard

I have worked for outward bound in a lot of differnent contexts for a while (off and on for 8 years) would love to answer any questions about the goods and bads. maybe thats more helpful than speculation or journalism. Ali —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.168.249.106 (talk) 00:57, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

I would suggest the following changes. The article should contain a timeline of Outward Bound in the USA. There is also and internal perception that Outward Bound USA represents the licensing and accounting function of the other Outward Bound Schools, whereas this article appears to me to be about Outward Bound in the USA. It may seem subtle but to the articles author I would imagine this might be causing some of the confusion. After representing the timeline, and merger history, I think there could be topics around the history of the different programming by school adding up to what is now a merged Outward Bound USA. -OR- each different outward bound school (Wilderness, Professional, Discovery, Centers, etc) could have their own article about their history, role in the US, programming, etc and then link them to this article, which would then address the role of Outward Bound USA today. I also have a comment about North Carolina posted above, but it is worth mentioning here that if the advisable direction is to create separate articles for each division then it would make sense to keep North Carolina separate. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.121.123.254 (talk) 19:00, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Updated 2016
Seeking to update the history and organizational structure. Added links to the Peace Corps archive as well as the NY Times.

Copyvio removal and NPOV
Just a heads up that I'll be doing a run through this article to remove or rewrite fairly extensive copy/paste from the organisation's site, and to attempt to restore NPOV. Happy to discuss any issues here as they arise. Cheers, Basie (talk) 08:08, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I've now completed reviewing the article for WP:COPYVIO, and removed the offending sections (replacing with what can be sourced). I hope to continue to improve the article, in similar vein to what I've done with Outward Bound New Zealand. Basie (talk) 23:48, 7 June 2018 (UTC)