After a two-hour drive off campus in a rental car, the nascent Georgetown University Surf Club, composed of Lily Loft (SOH ’27), Max Pattillo (CAS ’27) and four other Georgetown students, arrived in Assateague Island, Md., welcomed by warm salty air, wild horses and crashing waves. 

“We were all just really excited to see sand and waves,” Loft told The Hoya. “It was pretty magical to just be back by the beach.” 

“I was telling my friends last year that I was getting ocean withdrawals,” Pattillo told The Hoya. “You spend two hours a day there every morning, four times a week, for years, and then you just drop that in your life immediately for like seven months.” 

After their initial surfing outing, Loft and Pattillo hoped they could foster more excursions via entering the university’s new club development process, allowing their group to become a university-approved club and apply for funding from the school.

However, Loft said she received an email Nov. 17 that Georgetown’s Center for Student Engagement (CSE) had rejected Surf Club’s application to become a club.

Loft said she found the club application process frustrating because she did not receive actionable feedback to improve her application for recognition.

“I understand that Georgetown is limited in resources and they have to reject some clubs and that’s justified, but I think giving a reason why is important so people can go ahead and try to address that reason when they apply next time,” Loft said. “I think the club process is frustrating when they reject student clubs because it feels like a mass sent email — they gave no actual specific reason why Surf Club specifically was rejected. It didn’t feel personalized at all.”

The Surf Club’s struggles to gain funding and approval reflects the difficulties many clubs with outdoor focuses face at Georgetown. While groups such as Club Rock Climbing face issues subsidizing members’ fees, others such as Outdoor Education (Outdoor Ed), which aims to provide students with access to nature through organizing hikes, backpacking, rafting and kayaking trips, have restrictive training requirements.

Pattillo said he hopes the club becomes a space for those searching for community and connection over their shared interest of surfing. 

“Where I would like to take it is to a place where it’s accessible and obvious to those people who want to be a part of a community like that,” Pattillo said. 

The Role of Outdoor Clubs in Student Life

For some students involved in outdoor-focused clubs, student organizations provide a way of ensuring balance between city life in Washington, D.C., and opportunities to get outside and be in natural spaces.

Cristina Gomez (CAS ’26), who is a student guide for Outdoor Ed, said her involvement with the organization helps her feel more in touch with nature. 

“It’s a lot of fun to touch grass. For mental health, at least for me, it is important,” Gomez told The Hoya. “Going into the trees really helps me, it makes me feel calm.” 

Gomez runs three to four hikes a semester on trails around Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia, leading students through trails and teaching them about the environment. 

For Jessie Traxler (CAS ’26), another Outdoor Ed guide, taking part in the organization’s trips has been a way to escape the “Georgetown bubble,” many students’ term for the difficult-to-leave area around the university’s campus. 

“Every time I’m leading a trip, there’s at least one person who’s like, ‘Wow, it’s so nice to just get off campus and get outside,’” Traxler told The Hoya. 

“You’re hiking or you’re climbing or you’re paddleboarding, and so phones are away,” Traxler added. “I think it’s really important to not have screen time and to have this five- to eight-hour chunk in your day when you’re just interacting with other people.”

Kris Nessler, the director of Outdoor Ed, said the groups’ trips give students essential tools to navigate life in the real world. 

“Students who make it to the top of a climb that has challenged them all day or who camp comfortably in adverse weather conditions will develop resilience skills,” Nessler wrote to The Hoya. “Reaching the point of mastery with a new skill and then applying it in a real world situation is experiential learning at its best and outstanding in developing confidence.” 

According to Gomez, a typical Outdoor Ed hike begins with an 8 a.m. wake-up, followed by a one- to two-hour drive to the destination. On the trails, the group will stop every 30 minutes to talk, drink water and play trail games. 

Gomez said taking these breaks helps to connect her with the Georgetown community outside of classrooms and residence halls. 

“I think that as Georgetown students, we can kind of get in our heads and we’re on this small campus, so we might not necessarily leave all that much, and we feel like we’re confined and we have to do all this work all the time,” Gomez said. “Intentionally going off campus is really important, especially engaging in nature.”

Other outdoor-focused clubs include Georgetown Ski Club, which brings students on five to six weekend excursions per semester to nearby areas such as Bayse, Va., and Beech, N.C. 

Amelia Lightfoot (CAS ’27), a Ski Club board member, said she appreciates taking breaks from campus life through Ski Club, particularly in January and February. 

“It just breaks up the weeks being on campus,” Lightfoot told The Hoya. “The first few months of second semester can get very depressing and it can make you feel like every day is the same, like the weather is really dreary.”

“Leaving campus and just having something to look forward to and having a change in scenery just makes it more pleasant when you’re here,” Lightfoot added.

Clare Tourtelotte (CAS ’27), said she initially signed up to join Surf Club to get more opportunities to spend time by the ocean. 

“It’s always really nice to get off campus and stuff,” Tourtelotte told The Hoya. “I feel like there’s not a lot of outdoor opportunities in regards to going to water and being able to swim and surf.”

Grappling With Safety Concerns 

Safety concerns limit many outdoor-focused clubs’ ability to fully practice their sports or activities.

Loft and Pattillo’s attempts to found a Surf Club reflected the difficulty in starting clubs that have the potential to impact student safety.

The two students began the club application in August — attending a mandatory information session before applying to the Student Activities Commission (SAC), the advisory board for student clubs on campus, and then undergoing two rounds of selection during the new club development (NCD) process. Clubs that are accepted in the application process and recognized by the university can receive university benefits such as funding, access to university facilities and campus equipment as well as official inclusion in the annual Council of Advisory Boards (CAB) fair, a biannual event where clubs promote themselves to students.

In addition to being approved in the NCD process, clubs must have at least 12 full-time undergraduate student members and must prove they do not endanger “the safety of anyone or of university facilities.” 

According to a university spokesperson, this club approval process ensures that students remain safe and supervised.

“Each year, we urge all students to consider joining one of the many groups with access to University benefits, and we directly advise that unrecognized groups do not offer the benefit of university oversight,” the spokesperson wrote to The Hoya. 

Loft said Surf Club’s application was denied after the second round. 

The university spokesperson said safety concerns are paramount in the CSE’s oversight of clubs.

“Some clubs with access to university benefits, such as club sports, are required to have safety captains who must attend a safety training,” the spokesperson said. “Other outdoor clubs like the Grilling Society and Farmers’ Market undergo annual fire safety training.”

Student guides for Outdoor Ed undergo a particularly rigorous training and certification program compared to other outdoor-based clubs. 

Nessler said these protocols — which include 10 weeks of on-campus training, multiple overnight training trips, a week-long backpacking trip after school ends in May and a 72-hour Wilderness First Responder training course — ensure student safety on the potentially difficult trips.

“Safety for both our student participants as well as our student guides is the top priority of Georgetown Outdoor Education,” Nessler wrote. “We prepare our student guides through a rigorous training process and continuing education.” 

For Club Rock Climbing, Georgetown’s safety regulations mean that the club cannot practice outside, even though rock climbing is traditionally an outdoor sport and the D.C.-Maryland-Virginia area has several open-access rock-climbing sites in nature, according to the club’s president, Jordan Schuman (CAS ’25).

“Through the university, we only go to the gym, because they think it’s a liability to be outside,” Schuman said. “If you do it right, it’s safe, but they don’t let us take on that liability.”

Still, Schuman said Club Rock Climbing aims to do its best to facilitate opportunities for new members to get acquainted with rock climbing in a cost-effective and safe manner. 

“You still get the opportunity to climb,” Schuman said. “A lot of the people who are on the team have never climbed before or maybe they have once at a birthday party or something, and it’s a good opportunity for them to get out and do something new that we don’t have on campus.” 

The Struggle to Expand Outdoor Club Access

While student organizations such as the Corp and the Georgetown University Eating Society are known for their stringent club application processes, Georgetown’s outdoor clubs are selective and competitive in a different way.

Although many outdoor-focused clubs offer open access to general membership — meaning that all interested students can attend general body meetings — many trips or hikes are more competitive because of transportation issues and costs.

Gomez said that Outdoor Ed’s roughly 20 trips per semester can only accommodate approximately 10 students each, including guides, because there is limited space in the vans the club uses to transport students; interested students are selected on a first-come, first-served basis.

“They are very competitive sometimes because we have such limited space — we only really run like one trip a day on the weekends, and the van can only hold like nine or 10 participants,” Gomez said. “It would be really great if we could find a way to expand access.” 

The Ski Club has also faced a similar issue with transportation: according to Lightfoot, the team’s 51 total members cannot fit into the two 10-person vans and one student-owned car that they use to transport students for trips. 

Lightfoot said university funding through the Advisory Board for Club Sports (ABCS), which represents and advises club sports teams, also does not fully cover the Ski Club’s budget. The club relies on graduate donations and sizable student dues to cover lodging, transportation and race registration. 

“It’s always a struggle with funding, especially because we do entire weekends away in Airbnbs,” Lightfoot said. “Our dues are really high: They’re $500 to cover that stuff.”

If clubs want to use university-owned vans, they face additional hurdles. The Center for Social Justice Research, Teaching & Service (CSJ), which aims to promote the common good through service, is the main van rental location for student clubs, offering 18 vans for rent to student clubs.

For many student organizations, renting CSJ vans is a major expense. The rental cost is $15 per hour or $150 per day for overnight rentals plus a $15 registration fee while funding from the ABCS only covers a maximum of $8 per person.

According to Schuman, the cost of these vans makes transportation a primary issue for Club Rock Climbing.

“There are struggles, sometimes,” Schuman told The Hoya. “Some of it comes from the university; we depend on them for vans to be able to take people.”

Schuman said it is hard to keep clubs accessible and connected to the outdoors while staying financially accessible.

“We used to run two vans, if we had enough people, for a practice one night,” Schuman said. “But now we can only run one because of how expensive it is.”

Although ABCS provides assistance to club members in paying their $185 dues, which pay for memberships at Movement, a gym in Crystal City, Va., where the team practices, and van fees, only a limited number of climbers can receive that aid.

Schuman said the club structures its tryouts around these restrictions, giving subsidized spots to members who demonstrate commitment to climbing.

“On a general level, it’s very open. If you want to have a membership at the gym and come with us, you’re welcome to. But we have a somewhat limited roster,” Schuman told The Hoya. “It’s not skill-based, so it’s commitment. We try to do it in a way to make it more inclusive for people who maybe haven’t had the opportunity to climb before.”

Although Club Rock Climbing does not fully submerge itself in nature, Schuman said hosting their practices off-campus means students can at least leave the Georgetown area and build connections with areas outside the neighborhood. 

“It’s very nice to give other people the opportunity to leave,” Schuman said. “Leaving campus you see more of the area than just Georgetown, which is nice. It gives you more perspective about the world.”