Timothy Leach, a 1999 graduate of Bates College, discusses his fact-finding tour of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) in a lecture at 7:30 p.m. Monday, Jan. 14, in the college’s Chase Lounge, 56 Campus Ave. The presentation is open to the public at no charge.

Following his graduation from Bates, Leach, a geology major, established an outdoor education and leadership program involving students from Bates and from grade schools in Lewiston and Auburn (for more information click here. Now a resident of Greenwich, N.Y., Leach is an ardent outdoorsman and environmental advocate. During his Alaskan visit he preceded his stay in the ANWR with a partial climb of Denali (Mount McKinley) and a 500-mile bike trek from Fairbanks north to Prudhoe Bay.

During his five weeks in the refuge and the Prudhoe oil fields, Leach discussed the possible effects of oil drilling in the ANWR with natives, scientists, environmentalists, journalists and oil workers. “There were many passionate voices offering original research that indicated the potential for a serious negative impact if the coastal plain in the ANWR were developed for oil,” he says. At particular risk are the caribou that breed in the refuge and the native people who depend on them for sustenance.

“In my time in Alaska,” says Leach, “I have come to realize how ecologically and culturally significant the coastal plain of the ANWR is.” The notion, he says, “that we would trade it for a mere 3.2 billion barrels of oil, just enough to keep the United States fueled for six months, is ridiculously short-sighted.”

For more information about Leach’s lecture, please call 207-786-6330.

Modeled after outdoor leadership and teamwork-building programs like Outward Bound, BOELP will offer Bates students adventure activities to cultivate leadership skills, learn the value of flexibility and cooperation and develop a stronger sense of community.

“Bates expects that students will develop into effective leaders. This program will specifically focus on that metamorphosis,” said Leach, a former Bates Outing Club president. “Outdoor adventure-based programs will help reveal the wealth of leaders yet to be explored at Bates.”

Bates College President Donald W. Harward sees BOELP as a natural extension of the college’s educational mission.

“Bates has always understood that learning is connected to action, in and out of the traditional classroom setting,” he said. “Tim’s efforts will undoubtedly create even more opportunities for Bates students to learn both more about themselves and their fellow students.”

Junior advisors, resident coordinators and peer educators from the college’s substance-free CHOICES program, for example, will be encouraged to hone teamwork, communication and self-esteem-building skills while completing a ropes course or an extended backpacking trip. Leach also has three Auburn Middle School teachers and 24 of their new students registered for cooperation exercises before school starts.

Besides his Outing Club duties at Bates, Leach directed the successful Annual Entering Student Outdoor Program (AESOP), which organizes sea kayaking, hiking, rock climbing and camping trips for incoming students. He has also participated in Outward Bound programs and is a licensed hiking, whitewater rafting and canoeing guide in New York.

Leach envisions all first-year students and many staff and faculty participating in BOELP, with an expanded activities program, including sea kayaking at the college’s Shortridge Coastal Studies Center in Phippsburg, Maine. He also hopes student participants will become instructors, creating a self-perpetuating legacy of leadership development in the Lewiston-Auburn community.

Leach, a 1994 graduate of Queensbury High School, is the son of Dr. Richard Leach of Queensbury and Pamara Perry of Greenwich.