Students Work Up a Sweat in Northern Illinois U. Summer Course

Ah, the life of academic toil.

In “Xtreme Lit,” a summer class offered by Northern Illinois University, students read authors such as Edward Abbey and Jon Krakauer, romp through the mountains of Colorado for three weeks, and learn to rock-climb and fly-fish. They also receive six academic credits, the equivalent of a year-long course.

The class is taught by Don Hardy, an English professor at Northern Illinois, and David Barrow, who taught English full time at Northern Illinois before realizing he’d rather spend more time outside. Mr. Barrow, now an adjunct professor, runs adult programs for Outpost Wilderness Adventure, the Colorado company that introduces students to Colorado’s Tarryall Mountains.

The two dreamed up the course in 1997, just after Mr. Hardy completed his first rock-climb. “I said ‘David, I’ve got to do more of this,’” Mr. Hardy says. “He said, ‘Well, I’ve got an idea.’”

The course costs $2,500 per student, and is being taught this summer for the second time. The students will read works by Annie Dillard, Norman Maclean, and Henry David Thoreau, among others, before taking a van to Colorado. Each student will keep an extensive journal, and write a 15-page paper.

Even though none of the required books are set in the Tarryall Valley, the setting serves a purpose, Mr. Hardy says. “Students will learn what it feels like to be out there in the dirt and the grit.”

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