Partner Story
AT A GLANCE: Lewis & Clark College brings high schoolers to campus for pre-college programs; Get Outside Bus runs everything that happens after class ends.
Alexis Rehrmann
Catarina Millqvist-Hunter
Our Partner
Camp Directors Catarina Millqvist-Hunter, Alexis Rehrmann, and Grace Lawley run the college's summer pre-college programs.
Location: Portland, OR
Audience: High school students
Focus: Pre-college summer programs
Program Brief
Each summer, faculty and staff invite high school students onto campus for very different pre-college experiences – from theater and health careers to sustainable innovation and data journalism. Better yet, the programs serve a dual purpose: students who come to college for a few weeks of summer are more likely to enroll for four years of their lives.
The challenge wasn’t coming up with something worth teaching. It was everything that happens after class ends. Running a residential program for teenagers means transportation, overnight supervision, trained staff, medical support, schedules, meals, communication, and a hundred small decisions that academic departments weren’t necessarily built to handle.
So Lewis & Clark kept ownership of the programs, and we became the infrastructure underneath them. Working alongside their Camp Directors, our team serves as an embedded program director. Before students arrive, we take staff and faculty through a shared “Camp in a Box” training – walking through a typical week, talking through scenarios, and making sure the academic and residential sides of camp feel like one program.
Then the college gets to focus on what only it can provide: faculty, classrooms, curriculum, and a real college environment. We help take care of the rest. For students, that means something bigger than attending a summer class. They eat in the dining hall, navigate campus, meet new people, spend nights away from home, and get a little taste of the independence that comes with college.
For some of them, that may be the first time a college campus stops feeling like a place they might visit someday and starts feeling like a place they could actually belong.
“Give high school students interested in different career paths a meaningful, high impact week learning and living on a college campus. We wanted them to leave with the confidence that they could pursue these paths if they choose - and an expanded sense of what that path could be.”
“High school students are minors. I wanted our program to care for their physical and emotional wellbeing while they were with us - and also a program that gave them independence and autonomy while keeping them safe. I did not have this expertise and didn't feel confident managing this while also building curriculum for a new program.”
“Get Outside Bus is a terrific partner. They have so much experience with this age group and are generous in sharing it. They took responsibility for the physical and emotional wellbeing of students - I knew they would come to class ready to learn and explore. They create safe, fun activities and spaces for students to explore and learn and grow together. They hired a great set of RAs from our campus and together created a kind, stable, thoughtful, well-functioning team. When challenges arise, they are clear, capable, and solution-oriented. Also, they do all the van driving? And I am forever grateful that I can rely on them for all the airport runs!”
“A promising rate of student yield from our program in our incoming class.” - Alexis Rehrmann. “We were able to add two more camps to our portfolio in a very short time.” - Catarina Millqvist-Hunter
“Grow the program! We are looking this year at increasing size and participant capacity with Get Outside Bus support.”
