Fran Lo '97, coordinator of leadership programs and the Woman Peer Counselors program, will leave the University July 23, sending administrators searching for the third director of the Brown Outdoor Leadership Training program in three years.
Lo was in charge of BOLT, the ropes course at Brown's Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology in Bristol and the Student Leadership Collaborative, she said.
Lo is leaving Brown for Seattle, where she will begin a new job at the University of Washington. There she will work as a project coordinator for the Pipeline Project, an initiative that provides UW undergraduates with educational and service opportunities through tutoring and mentoring in Seattle public schools and community-based organizations.
Lo was a BOLT participant while an undergraduate at Brown, and she became head of the program last year.
In an e-mail to BOLT leaders in the Class of 2004, Lo wrote, "I will be leaving Brown with mixed emotions as I am excited about this new professional opportunity and happy to be moving back to Seattle where the mountains and forests make me feel alive."
"However, I am going to miss the wonderful people that I have met here at Brown, and I will miss the wonderful programs that I have been involved in - especially BOLT," she wrote.
The Office of Student Life does not have a plan as to who will take over as head of BOLT after Lo's departure, but the office is currently working to develop such a plan, Lo told The Herald.
Lo said that even though solid arrangements have yet to be made, OSL is working hard to guarantee that BOLT will remain an essential part of campus opportunities. "It's just a matter of who will run it and how it will be structured," she said.
Founded in 1987 by students, with the support of then-Dean of the College Robin Rose, BOLT was threatened in recent years by budget cuts and adminstrative reorganization in student life after Lo's job expanded to include supervision of the WPC program. Because WPC training was scheduled for the same time as the planned BOLT trip, University administrators proposed moving the trip later in the fall semester until an anonymous donation of about $5,000 to $6,000 allowed BOLT organizers to hire professional staff for the August expeditions.
BOLT's fall trip, which will take approximately 120 sophomores and transfer students for a five-day backpacking trip through the White Mountains in New Hampshire, will take place as scheduled in August, despite Lo's departure. According to the e-mail Lo sent members of the Class of 2004 who had served as BOLT leaders, her husband will return to serve as BOLT's fall trip coordinator along with Rose, now Brown's director of leadership, and if her schedule permits her to, she might also visit.
BOLT leader Manu Lohiya '06 said that even though the fall trip is still on, he's still somewhat worried about the future of BOLT after Lo's departure. "She's been involved with BOLT and Brown for many, many years now. She was a participant in BOLT herself when she was a student and then went on to become a leader," he said.
"I'm sure the selection committee will find someone just as responsible, but there's no substitute for that kind of hands-on experience," Lohiya said.
Other BOLT leaders said Lo will be missed, but they said they are confident that the program will continue to foster a vibrant community on campus.
Keally DeWitt '04.5, a BOLT leader, said a lot of the efforts to keep BOLT alive in the face of budget cuts and sporadic administrative financial support have come from its student managers and the many students whose count their BOLT trips as among their best memories of Brown.
Lo's departure "just puts more responsibility on us" to preserve the program, said BOLT leader Ben Feigenberg '06.
Herald staff writer Danielle Cerny '06 edits the Arts & Culture section. She can be reached at dcerny@browndailyherald.com.
