Mission, Goals & Evaluation
Program Mission
Wisconsin Basecamp is UW-Madison’s wilderness-based orientation program for incoming UW-Madison students, both new freshman and transfer students. Through a student-led outdoor experience participants create social networks, prepare themselves for academic success and for being fully engaged UW-Madison community members.
Goals of the Program
Goal 1: Through an experiential education experience, provide new UW-Madison students with social connections, engagement opportunities and information that helps both insure their success at UW-Madison and introduces them to the spirit and excitement that is the UW.
Goal 2: Support the University Orientation and New Student Programs Advisory Committee’s First-Year Goals, reinforcing and enhancing the ability of participants to make positive life choices while at UW-Madison.
Goal 3: Foster a greater appreciation of the value of both our natural environment and open spaces, and the importance of diversity, being empathetic and creating a positive climate at UW Madison.
Goal 4: Provide students with leadership opportunities both within and outside of the Basecamp program.
Evaluation: Measuring Success
Metric 1: Program participants have higher on average retention and graduation rates when compared to their peers as measured at 4 year undergraduate class level.
Metric 2: A majority of program participants judge their level of self-defined community engagement to be at a higher level than their peers.
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"Without my Basecamp buds I would have never stayed at UW-Madison. Being from LA, coming here was a whole new world. Having the friends I made at Basecamp made me more confident about succeeding at Wisconsin, and I have!"
(Leah Bellack, 2008 Basecamp Alum, 2009-11 Basecamp Trip Leader, recent UW-Madison graduate…)
