Vol. 19, No. 3 - Summer 2003

These grads work hard at recreation

Students pursue degrees in recreation, park, and sport studies for any number of reasons: a love of the land, a passion for athletics, the desire to help people feel better using the outdoors as a tool.

The program is part of the college’s School of Kinesology. Its graduates work throughout Minnesota, the United States, and around the world. They include a resource management scientist for the U.S. Forest Service; a natural resources director and a recreation supervisor, both in Minnesota; a professor of tourism management in the Republic of Korea, a professor of recreation therapy in Taiwan, and a professor of First Nations Studies in British Columbia; and a YMCA camp director right here in the Twin Cities.

Part of the attraction to the field is the flexibility of its career possibilities. As the alumni featured below prove, you can take a degree in recreation, park, and sport studies in almost any direction in almost any setting. One thing these particular alums share is a quest to get people moving and enjoying physical activity and the natural resources that surround us.

Ann Sarnecki: The river is her textbook

Ann Sarnecki spends every workday encouraging people to enjoy one of Minnesota’s greatest natural resources, the Mississippi River. As an interpretive park ranger for the National Park Service, Sarnecki teams up with area park districts, businesses, community groups, and others to promote the Mississippi National River and Recreation Area, a 72-mile stretch of the Big Muddy that flows from Ramsey to Hastings.

Sarnecki’s job can include partnering with the group Friends of the Mississippi River or the Paddleford Packet Boat Company on different programs along the river. In May she was planning a weekend event for International Migratory Bird Day at the Coon Rapids Dam. Recently Sarnecki’s main focus has been helping to orchestrate the opening of the Mississippi River Visitors Center this August near the Science Museum of Minnesota in St. Paul.

“It’s a unique job. It’s great to work with the National Park Service in such a unique setting and have the opportunity to work with such a variety of partners,” Sarnecki says. “It’s not a typical park where you go into the park every day and give a tour. The opportunities are endless and varied, and the job is always evolving.”

Sarnecki was a burned out social worker who had been volunteering at Three Rivers Park District (formerly Hennepin County Park District), when she learned she could actually make money doing similar work. She went back to school and earned a master’s degree in recreation, park, and leisure studies in 1994, seeking to mesh her love of recreation and working with people.

An internship with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources and her coursework helped Sarnecki narrow her career goal to working in a visitors’ center or at a park. She couldn’t be happier in the park she wound up at, even though it’s a rare setting because the National Park Service owns none of the land she focuses on.

Sarnecki is looking forward to the new St. Paul visitors’ center so that she’ll have more direct contact with the public. She can’t wait to talk up the beauty of the Mississippi and the opportunities it provides for recreation. “People are fascinated by the Mississippi. They can’t believe what they can get out and do along the river,” Sarnecki says. “It’s rewarding to learn all of these things and be able to share them with people. The river is such an icon and it’s right in your backyard.”

Jamal Riley: Building the foundation for his dream

One class was all it took to inspire Jamal Riley to change career paths. He came to the University with the intention of becoming an athletic trainer, but his orientation class in recreation and leisure studies opened his eyes to other possibilities. “It just seemed like it would be more gratifying,” says Riley. “It would have more intrinsic value for me to deal with people and the community. I knew I wouldn’t become rich but it would be something I would get more joy out of.”

Riley is definitely getting joy out of his current job, a position he’s held since his senior year in college. He is facilities manager for the University’s Department of Recreational Sports, where he hires and manages about 50 students who work at the University’s athletic facilities. He works closely with the students, helping them make the most of their positions, whether they are a CPR certification instructor or a gym attendant. Riley also plans events for his department, the University, and sometimes even the community.

“My job fits my degree exactly,” Riley says. “Going into recreation and leisure studies, all the things I went to school for I’ve experienced at the University of Minnesota: programming, scheduling, event management, administration. I learned that everything is not always going to go the way you planned so be prepared for the unexpected. And probably the most important, how to deal with people and your employees.”

A football player in high school, Riley intended to walk on the University of West Virginia team but an injury cut that dream short. He worked for a few years before college, unsure of what he wanted to study. After holding positions as a program coordinator and physical education instructor at the YMCA, Minnetonka Public Schools, and the Boys and Girls Club, he settled on a career in athletic training. Then came his class in recreation and leisure studies and everything clicked. In 2000, he earned a bachelor’s degree in recreation, park, and leisure studies with an emphasis in public parks and recreation.
“I’ve always wanted to be involved in the community. It’s something that’s dear to me because I believe in a strong community and a strong family,” says Riley. “I believe you draw from your surroundings to succeed.”

Riley believes his education gave him the tools to pursue another dream. He plans to earn a master’s in sport management and eventually open a recreation center that offers youth sports, continuing education for adults, and a health care clinic. His ideas for giving back to the community are informed by his education and fueled by his dreams.

Jean Larson: Offering the peace of plants

A typical day for Jean Larson might mean planting seeds in a garden with people who have Parkinson’s disease, teaching a class in therapeutic landscape design, or planning the sensory garden at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum. The coordinator of the Arboretum’s therapeutic horticulture program, Larson sums up her position as one that “brings people to the plants and plants to the people.”

“I absolutely adore my job,” says Larson, who graduated in 1990 with a master’s degree in therapeutic recreation and outdoor education. Larson planned to work with persons with disabilities since she was in junior high, when she taught swimming lessons to people with developmental disabilities. As someone with dyslexia, Larson finds nature to be a healing place and she wanted to bring the sense of peace she gains from the outdoors to others.

Before getting her job at the Arboretum in 1992, Larson held a variety of positions, including coordinating therapeutic recreation at the Vinland National Center in Loretto. She had to fight for the therapeutic horticulture job, but she did so willingly. “It’s so me. It fits who I am personally, it fits who I am professionally,” she says. “It’s a lot of creativity and contact with a lot of different people. What a great job, and it all comes through playing with dirt.”

Larson strives to bring plants to life for people any way she can, whether it’s helping them cultivate flora or introducing them to horticulture through cooking, art, or music. When working with Parkinson’s patients, for example, she gets them to practice hand-eye coordination by working in an outdoor garden instead of being cooped up in a therapy room.

“There is something more holistic and fulfilling about that,” says Larson, whose enthusiasm for her job peppers her speech. “Now someone is motivated and engaged in the activity they are doing and they’re not thinking about their depression. Their body is refreshed and rejuvenated. Nature can provide the physical, social, psychological, intellectual, and spiritual benefits that we all need and crave.”

Larson believes she has a natural affinity for the healing arts, but earning her master’s degree formalized her intuitive knowledge. At the University, she learned how to determine goals and objectives, recognize outcomes, learn from them, and articulate success. She is now pursuing a Ph.D.

“It is like a formal herb garden with four quadrants. In the first area you develop the program, then you implement it and you get evaluation information back, and from that information you improve the program,” Larson explains. “It’s a feedback loop, and that’s how you do good programming. I bring my passion and enthusiasm for what I do to help feed that circle.”

—Suzy Frisch