September 15 - Laurier Ramble

Our first session of the walking seminar began in the residential learning community where I met Ian Spence, the residence don, who gave me a tour of the building. I had the opportunity to see how the students live. This provided a huge contrast to the way classes normally begin with students trying to find the professor. The first learning challenge given to the students was to take us to our classroom. It was great to see how the students took various roles as leaders and information seekers while they found their way to the Dean Of Arts Boardroom.

We then spent some time getting to know each other and the expectations of the course. I reviewed the syllabus and emphasized that the main objective of this seminar is to learn the research and writing process through the experience and study of walking.


We then went on a short campus walk. First we went to the Arts building, the home of Geography and Environmental Studies, to look at the beautiful compass rose inlaid in the terrazzo floor. Next we followed the heritage walkway over to the seminary, a place most first-year students don’t get a chance to explore. There we met Dean David Pfrimmer who invited us into his office. Here we had a moment of walking serendipity, as David explained to us the story of the statue of Adam Keffer, the founder of the seminary, who walked the 2,000 km from Waterloo to Pennsylvania and back. We ended this session with a walk to the Alumni field where we experimented with walking in blindfolds. It turns out that walking exactly 15 metres in a straight line isn’t too difficult, but even a slightly more complicated route becomes an interesting wayfinding challenge.